


Shattered

by Muriel_Perun



Series: Banished [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Thor: The Dark World Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-01
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-02 08:32:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 59,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4053499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muriel_Perun/pseuds/Muriel_Perun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to "Banished"<br/>Loki returns to Midgard in search of Thor, but is waylaid by an old enemy. In his quest for revenge he mixes it up with the Avengers. But is he an ally, an enemy, or--for Tony--something more?</p><p>A note of panic crept into Stark’s voice. “Listen, I don’t think this is....” Loki licked his neck and played the lip of his tongue lightly around the inside of Stark’s ear. Stark tilted his head back without quite being aware of it. Loki mouthed his face, his throat, traced the outline of Stark’s lips with the tip of his tongue. Stark moaned softly. “If you ever tell Pepper,” he breathed, “I’ll....”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue and Old Enemies

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to "Banished."  
> Many, many thanks to Catalenamara for a wonderful beta.

**Prologue**

Long ago, in the darkness between the branches of Yggdrasil, the stars danced and whirled, singing their ancient songs. On the worlds between the stars, creatures walked and crawled and swam, and they sang, too, and built citadels, and tore them down, and built them up again. When they bickered and fought, the stars seemed to take no notice, though perhaps their song grew a hint sadder from time to time.

And then, one day out of all the stream of time, a thing came out of the darkness, sending a shudder through the Tree of Life from its mysterious roots to its glorious crown. Once it had been a Titan, a god of Midgard, but the Titans’ children destroyed them and ruled for a thousand years, until they, too, lost all their worshippers and leached away into oblivion.

It passed first through Nivelheim, where Hel rules over the faceless dead—an invisible pall, like a breath of air from a tomb. The starlight quivered and quailed. Even the dead shrank back from what they felt there: the antipode of life, the void incarnate. And the emptiness smiled to know itself so feared, and gave itself a name: Thanos.

It had survived long eons as a mere shadow, but now it took a fearsome and powerful form, the corporeal expression of its will, and it laughed to find itself in the physical world, for when it was done, when its plan was complete, Yggdrasil would be laid waste, and all would again be void.

Thanos found his eyes, his ears, his sense of touch, his voice. He spoke aloud his name, and his plan became real. He could see it spread out before him on a map of the stars, each objective marked by a sparkling jewel, and he saw that it was good.

Thanos laughed. He opened his massive hand and reached for the stars.

 

**Chapter 1: Old Enemies**

Loki had been wandering between worlds when he was taken.

Since his long captivity as a mortal on Midgard, he had not returned there, less out of respect for Tony Stark’s request that he stay away, or Thor’s half-articulated desire to remain with Jane, than out of a mad passion to enjoy his freedom in any risky adventure that came his way. He had renewed his knowledge of the secret ways that honeycombed the nine realms and the strange, unexplored sub-worlds that existed in the interstices between them, lonely worlds where he found unknown sights and isolated civilizations that did not know enough to fear Loki or his whims. Some he left as worshippers, and others would kill him on sight if he ever showed himself on their worlds again. None of this was through intention. Loki did as he wished, when he wished it. Anything that amused him caught his attention. Everything else he left behind without regrets.

Except for Thor. Something still nagged at his mind when he thought about Thor, and so Loki tried not to think of him often.

Still thinking of Thor after all this time made Loki angry, and it made him want to go to Thor and find out what he was doing, and to interfere with it. Whether Thor was restless or contented, Loki wanted to stir things up and make Thor focus his energy on Loki.

But, on his way down an obscure path that led to a backwater of Midgard, something tore him right out of a passageway, sending him into a dizzying fall.

***

Coming back from unconsciousness, Loki heard the wind moaning, but he felt no breeze.

It was dark, and his eyes would not open. His limbs would not obey him. His mouth was dry and the air was close and stale. The aromatic scent of wood overwhelmed his senses, choking him. When he tried to shake his head he came up against something unyielding, boxing in his face, holding his body immobile. His muscles spasmed in panic, but he was held fast. He was in pain everywhere, caught in a trap that squeezed and pressed in on his flesh, pricked at it with a thousand small stings.

There were no sounds here except those he made himself. The moaning he had heard was not the wind, but his own voice.

He had taken a secret path to Midgard, a circuitous one, because he had wanted to come stealthily upon Thor, to observe his brother for a while before making himself known. But something had pulled him off his way. He had tumbled through space, into this snare. How long he had been here, been unconscious, was a mystery. Gradually, though the scent and the feel of the place, he was starting to understand the nature of his prison. Loki was entombed in an ancient oak, naked, held fast in the wood, which oppressed his flesh, scraped at his skin, pressed small slivers into the tender skin of his lips and eyelids.

This was a favorite trick of wood nymphs from the ancient days of Loki’s childhood, a time when the glory of Greek civilization had faded, and even the Roman Empire was tottering. The old gods were dead or dying, and the lesser divinities—the nymphs and sprites who lived in rivers and forests—had few worshippers, the last adherents of a dying cult.

Loki, in contrast, had been young, and curious, and entirely merciless, poking at the remnants of the old godhead as a young boy might shove a stick into an anthill or, occasionally, to his dismay, into a hornets’ nest. That was how he had run up against the forest nymph Dione.

Five hundred years before, while traveling through Greece, Loki had discovered Dione’s shrine at Dodona—even then long past its glory—tended only by a few bent, old women who stubbornly clung to their pagan heritage. The oaks in her sacred grove had withered and died, one after another, until only a few remained, the center of her cult. No longer did an oracle sit by the oak and predict men’s futures, but the black-clad women still tended the sacred spring and made sacrifice in Dione’s name.

When, so long ago, Loki had encountered this stuffy old goddess, so rude and touchy, refusing to admit that her worshippers were dying off, and that her power had faded to a shadow of itself, he had not been able to resist impersonating one of the black birds that used to frequent her shrine—the oracle’s familiars, which had abandoned it long before. After creating a stir among the sparse cult, Loki had summoned fire and burned the largest of the sacred oaks in a spectacular blaze. He changed the location of the sacred spring so that the old women could no longer find it. He had always been disappointed that history had not recorded this ironic trick—one pagan god destroying the cult of another.

Dione had known whom to blame, but Loki hadn’t much cared, since her strength was paltry compared to his. He had thought never to encounter the old witch again, imagining that, without worshippers, she would dry up and blow away on the breeze.

Now he was sure who had caught him; as he thought her name he heard her laughter ringing in his head. But how had she possessed the power to pull Loki out of a way between worlds and cage him here without alerting him? Even five hundred years before she had been no match for him.

His hands were trapped over his head, fingers extended towards the sky, and he already felt them becoming feathery, like leaves, his body creaking as the oakwood did, swaying in a wind whose song was muffled by the wood around him. If he didn’t leave this trap soon, he might stay here forever, half himself and half vegetable, waiting for an axe or a lightning bolt to cut him down and free him. And if release came too late, he would never be free, but would remain a part of the oak forever.

The wood squeezed in further, cutting off his breath. Dione was in the oak, inhabiting its substance—she must have felt him panicking, unable to fill his lungs, to clear his mind of her keen, silvery laughter that pierced his head with a thousand needles of agony. He was losing himself. Before, he had vanquished her easily with the little _seidr_ he possessed at the time. How was she overpowering him now? He was infinitely stronger than he had been then, yet she was holding him fast. _How was this happening? Who was helping her? What stronger enemy had he provoked?_

The wood continued stiffening against him as Dione laughed and crowed. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Loki listened to her laughter and forced himself to think. Her wild boasting told him that she had no fear he would escape. She had waited centuries to get Loki in her grasp, and here he was, at her mercy, naked and helpless. She was enjoying his ineffective struggles, his complete humiliation at her hand. All her fear of him was gone. She had a powerful ally—but who would lend so much power to a half-dead wood sprite? Dione was merely the web. The spider was coming. Burning anger rose in Loki’s chest, burying the fear, as he realized the urgency of his situation. _Think._

If he used _seidr_ , it would rebound upon him. If he invoked fire, it would burn him up with the tree. But if he invoked cold, and then fire, perhaps he could escape this trap with most of his skin.

Ice. He hated to invoke it. It reminded him of who he had been, long ago, before Odin had taken him home as battle spoils and had transformed him into Aesir with a glamour that had eventually mutated his true substance. Invoking cold made his skin turn blue, made his eyes red like glowing coals. It brought the monster out in him. But there was power in cold, and he needed it now.

He took in what breath he could and let it out slowly. Drawing _seidr_ down through his leafy hands, he called on the power of winter, imagining his Jotunn body, and feeling the ice travel through him, turning him blue and hard as steel. Slowly he became a blade of ice in a living tree, a hard intrusion that offended the wood, deforming its shape. He descended into cold, freezing his Aesir body until his powers and thoughts slowed, circled. The wood creaked and moaned, resisting his strength. Cracks formed in its substance; light penetrated the heart of the oak. Something resisted him, pushing back, trapping him again as it closed off the cracks. If he continued as he was he would freeze his very flesh, and perhaps he would break Odin’s glamour and become Jotunn as at his birth, or his Aesir body would weaken and succumb to the cold, and he would die, or remain in this trap forever.

Now he invoked fire, wishing he could draw down the quickness of Thor’s lightning, and the tree’s ancient bark smoldered and caught flame. He was trapped, eyes closed, limbs immobilized, and he couldn’t breathe. His lungs filled with caustic woodsmoke, his flesh already singed by the heat. He had to get out of here.

With a burst of pure _seidr_ , the elemental magic from the core of his being, he exploded the thinning wood and tumbled, gasping, into the scorching light and heat of a Mediterranean summer, his eyes blinded, his ears still stunned by the explosion he had wrought.

He was naked and shivering, trying to catch his breath as he thawed in the sunlight, crouched on his hands and knees upon a stony path that was paved with bits of green-gray slate that cut into his flesh. His hands were singed; his palms were covered with blisters that he needed to heal. All around, cicadas that had been momentarily stunned by the blast began to jeer in the scrub and low trees on this mountain path.

He knew this place—Epirus, in Greece, Dione’s ancient home, where paths like this led through the forested mountains from village to village, hamlets built from this green-gray slate that was digging into his knees.

Of Loki’s many enemies, a goodly portion called Midgard home. Someone else, someone more powerful, had loaned the old goddess the strength she required to pen Loki up in the oak. Surely Dione knew by now he had escaped and was calling on her benefactor for help. Who would enlist an ancient sprite to hold Loki captive? Had this enemy set traps at all of his favorite paths to Midgard? Which of his enemies wanted Loki badly enough to do that? Which of them had sufficient power?

He could only think of one.

He stood unsteadily and prepared a spell to clothe himself and disappear. But before he could summon the spell, something cold and hard slinked up his back, slithered around his throat, and tightened. Throwing out both arms, he blasted _seidr_ in all directions, severing the tether that held him and throwing it off. He stumbled away and turned to face his enemy.

From the low woods emerged creatures of nightmare that he had hoped never to see again, half living flesh and half machine—Chitauri. And so his guess was right. Thanos.

Metal tethers shot out from their hands, snaked around his throat, securing him from all sides faster than he could throw them off, choking him, seizing his wrists and tugging him down towards the ground. Disappearing made no difference now that they had him, so he fought them grimly and as well as he could, sending out deadly blasts of _seidr_ until he was exhausted, and they had wrested him to his knees and immobilized him with their metal whips. His hands were bound to his sides, his neck layered in metal straps so thick and tight they almost prevented him from drawing breath. Still he struggled, uselessly, unable to speak, but full of fury and still projecting magical destruction with his will alone. The first Chitauri that approached him exploded in a hail of scrap metal and bits of flesh. The second and third came at once, and though he decapitated them both, they succeeded in damaging his body with blows of their metal limbs that doubled him over in pain.

Others came for him, heedless of whether he killed them or not, and he could not kill them all. Finally, lying on his side on the ground, he stilled, gasping for air as darkness claimed his mind, while one of the Chitauri soldiers, half again as tall as he, struck him blow after blow, incessantly, like a hammer on his flesh whose blows he heard and felt but could not defend himself against. The pain had dulled, and he knew he was about to die here, so he spat at them, spat blood, even as he choked on his metal bonds and tumbled senseless down a shaft of infinite darkness.

 


	2. Peace and Agony

Thor sat cross-legged on the dessert sand and waited for the sun to rise. Next to him, Jane sat very still in what she called the “lotus position,” raising her face towards the emerging light, with one open hand posed, palm up, on each knee. She looked perfectly relaxed. Thor knew he was supposed to be doing exactly what she was doing. Jane was trying to teach him how to meditate.

He knew he shouldn’t be looking at her, shouldn’t have his eyes open at all, but he had to admit that he felt better being able to see what was in front of him. Maybe it was a warrior’s instinct and training, or maybe it was a desire to see the rising sun, or to look at Jane, but he had never felt comfortable in an open space with his eyes closed. And when his eyes were closed his mind ran on, and when he let his mind run on, he always came back to the one thing he didn’t want to think about: Loki.

Where was Loki now? Was he having the kind of adventures that he was good at finding? Was he committing acts of trickery and violence that Thor would cringe to know of, that Thor would have to clean up after?

Would he ever come back? And, if he did, what would Thor do then?

Thor loved Jane, and couldn’t conceive of leaving her, but he loved Loki, too. Loki had made him remember that Jane’s life would run its course long before theirs. In a few, short years she would look older than Thor, and then she would be an old woman. Would he be able to love her then? Would she send him away? It was all too sad to contemplate.

Contemplation. Meditation. That was what Thor was here to accomplish, and he was failing badly. He watched Jane’s serene face, watched her chest rise and fall with her gentle breath. He was supposed to concentrate on his breathing. Jane said it would help him empty his mind of all thought, and that was supposed to help him feel calm, avoid worry. Despite all her instruction, he just couldn’t do it.

He thought of his dream from the night before. Certain dreams about Loki had returned to him many times. Dreams about his brother seldom ended well. Thor always lost him. Either Loki died, or he fell, or Thor couldn’t find him. The previous night Thor had dreamt that he was hanging out over the Bifrost, seeing Loki clinging to Gungnir, and Odin’s stern face as he watched them both.

Loki’s face was upturned in the starlight, but he looked older than he had then. His hair was longer, hanging in dark tendrils around his shoulders, and his eyes were harder, angrier, as they always were later.

“No, Loki,” Odin said again, as he always and forever would.                 

Hope drained out of Loki’s face. His eyes became defiant and resolute, as his lips pursed slightly. Suddenly Thor could see the stitches around his lips, the brown leather and bloody holes contrasting with his ghostly skin.

“No! Loki!” Thor screamed. Loki fell, meeting Thor’s eyes until his body was a speck in the cosmic distance.

He had awoken in the night, his heart pounding. Just thinking of the dream now had broken Thor’s concentration hopelessly. With a sigh, he turned to watch the horizon and wait for Jane to finish her meditation. He wished he could know even a fraction of the peace she seemed to be finding in this tranquil desert morning.

***

Loki lay on the stone floor of a cave that had been converted into a prison with metal bars set solidly into the stone. Such light as leaked in from distant chambers and passageways made the glossy stone glow ghostly white, stalactites like pale icy fingers reaching down, the occasional drips falling from them sounding like musical tones echoing in the silence. You could keep time by these falling drops, but time measured in eons, not hours.

Loki had been in such caves before, and so knew he was still in Epirus, but the knowledge did him no good. The cuffs on his wrists and ankles were warded against his magic with runes, as was the door of his metal cage, and the daily tortures carried out on his body by his cyborg captors left him with little strength to spare on planning an escape.

They inflicted upon him unspeakable pain. They cut his skin with implements both sharp and dull, tearing or slicing according to some schedule or imperative he was not aware of. They burned and branded him, beat him or hung him by his hands or feet, according to whims he knew these creatures were not capable of, for, through all the pain and horror, they always moved deliberately—without anger, without passion of any kind. They always stopped short of killing or permanently maiming him. They ended each session at a point where his body could at least begin to recover and be ready for the next day’s ordeal.

There was intelligence behind this, and a plan that Loki was starting to discern the outlines of. Its goals were beginning to take shape in his mind, too, as if the pain itself, the ever-inventive tortures, carried a message from the architect of Loki’s undoing, an insistent and terrible writing that used his skin for its template. And Loki listened well to the pain; for, throughout these weeks and months of unremitting torment, there were no words to listen to.

Through every session, he was gagged, so that he could not scream, could not curse or revile them, or spit in their hideous faces. Even had they let him speak, he could not have manipulated them—for heartless machines do not feel boredom or regret as they do their mechanical tasks—could not have spun a lie or a story to save his hide—for what did a story mean to a being with a binary brain? They asked him nothing, demanded nothing besides that which he could not prevent: that he bleed and moan, choking behind his gag, hating them as ineffectually as one might hate the weather or an earthquake, for they were as implacable. His defiance meant nothing; his strength, even less, for it ensured that this might last for years, decades, generations.

When he had fallen into their hands before, they had tortured him for a year, and finally he had done what they wanted him to do. But that time The Other had beaten Thanos’ orders into his head with words like blows, words to match the incessant blows they inflicted on his body. This time all was done in eerie silence, as if for no reason at all. But Loki knew very well there was a reason.

Loki traveled best alone, without the constraints or judgments of others, doing what he liked, when he liked. But when he was caught, or injured, he had no partner to fight beside him. He found himself longing for Thor, dreaming of the unyielding vengeance of Mjolnir called down upon the Chitauri. And then he would see Thor’s face—pitiless, as Thor destroyed the horde of cyborgs teeming around him; dogged, as he broke through the bars and freed Loki from his chains; sorrowful, as Thor tended to his wounds. Then Loki cursed himself for a fool as the guards came for him again and the visions dissolved into nothingness—weak, contemptible fantasies born of misery and pain, as his mind endlessly sought a way out of an intolerable situation.

And then one day Loki allowed himself to understand the message that Thanos was sending him through the torture inflicted by these mindless drones.

His tormentors had thrown him facedown into his cell after a day when they had sliced his forearms to ribbons and then run electricity through the wounds, leaving him in agony, his muscles trembling and weak, full of defiant fury that was beginning to fray into despair. He asked himself for the thousandth time what Thanos wanted from him, and for the thousandth time he realized what he was meant to do. There was no escape from this conclusion. He had been here for 70 days, and for nearly all that time he had known why.

It was time to do what they wanted him to do.

A trap had three parts: a snare, a trigger, and bait. In his lifetime, Loki had set many traps and had sprung most of them on his prey, and in turn he had been lured into many. But seldom had he found himself playing the role he was meant to play now.

Too weak to stand, he dragged himself over to a spot where the stone was flat. With the edge of his metal cuffs, he traced three runes into the limestone floor, going over and over them until he had formed shallow grooves that stood out against the pale stone. Then from the seeping wounds on his arms, he let blood drip down to fill the grooves.

Loki could not use magic, but there was magic already present in this cave. In the stone walls around him there were traces of the deep earth magic he had vainly sought in New York. Here, with fewer unbelievers, in untouched places, a few spirits of place, like Dione, his old enemy, still remained, their substance lending a trace of _seidr_ to the place where they still barely dwelled.

When the runes were full of blood, Loki lowered his face and warmed them with his breath, putting into his will all of his pain and anger, the beginnings of his despair. For a fraction of a second, there was a glimmer of green light, like the reflection of a fleeting wave on dark water, spelling out a name he knew as well as his own. But it wasn’t his name written there in the runes. He was not the prey this time. He was the bait.

Would Thor feel his call? It would be faint, and it would be wordless—more a vague sense of something amiss than a true message. If Thor were at table, or in bed with his lady love, he probably would not notice the fleeting touch of ancient magic. The insensitive oaf would probably mistake Loki’s message for indigestion, or the effect of too much ale. But perhaps, if he were asleep, if his mind were open...

Loki hoped it would be enough. And if it were enough, if Thor understood his message, would he come?

***

Taking a deep breath, Jane exhaled through her mouth and opened her eyes. Thor could have looked away and pretended to be meditating, but that would have been dishonest.

Her face creased into a surprised smile. “Were you watching me this whole time?”

Thor smiled back, a little sheepishly. “I’m afraid so.”

“Don’t watch me!” She laughed self-consciously. “I can’t meditate if you’re watching me.”

“What if you don’t know?” he teased. “I had to watch you because you’re so beautiful.”

She shook her head in mock disapproval, but shifted closer on the sand to lean against him.

“You’re always worrying,” she said, putting her head on his shoulder. “You can’t know what Loki is doing. You won’t know until he wants you to.”

Thor sighed. “How do you always know what I’m thinking?”

“Because you’re always thinking about Loki.”

Thor put his arm around her and squeezed gently. She was right. He had tried to stop, but he couldn’t. He didn’t understand how she could accept it.

“Jane, I love you,” he murmured. “I don’t deserve you.”

She made an impatient movement against his body. “Stop saying that. It’s an excuse.” She pushed him down and he yielded until he was flat on his back on the hard sand with her straddling his chest. “I keep telling you: don’t worry about the past. Just decide how you’re going to act in the future and then do it. It’s simple.”

Thor looked into her clear brown eyes. Not so simple. “I know how I want to act.”

Jane kissed him briefly and then rose, looking down at him. The golden disk of the sun broke over the horizon. Half her face was suddenly lit with blood-red light and half was blue with shadow.

“If you knew where he was, would you go to him?” Her voice sounded thick and forced. Each word had a deliberation behind it, as if she had said them in her head many times and only now was saying them out loud.

Thor reached a hand towards her. “Jane....”

Her stance did not soften, nor did her voice. “Would you?”

Thor had debated this question with himself for many months, since the day Loki had escaped from New York.

Would he go? After everything Loki had done? The image from his dream shimmered behind his eyes. _Loki falling, his eyes disappointed and dark._

Loki had kissed him that day in New York, a hungry kiss that had promised everything they used to enjoy and more, all the intimacy and pleasure that Thor had missed for years. And yet it was a calculating kiss, meant to hold Thor in suspension, waiting for Loki’s return, whenever he decided that manipulating Thor was once again in his interest. Knowing all this, Thor was still in thrall to the memory of it.

Loki had disappeared, and Thor had stood there with empty hands and an aching heart and confused mind, as Stark and the others filed in from the room where they had seen everything. How they had looked at him, then—like an enemy, a betrayer. They didn’t understand what Loki meant to him, or maybe they did. He couldn’t blame them for being angry after all Loki had done to them and their world. And he couldn’t make them see his point of view, either.

“Take some time, Thunderball,” Stark had said to him.

“I don’t need any time,” Thor had replied staunchly.

“ _We_ need some time,” Stark retorted. “We’re not sure where you stand anymore, with Loki or with us. Why did you tell us that long story and get us drunk? Was that part of his escape plan?”

“I would never stand with Loki against you,” Thor had insisted hotly. They didn’t believe him, although Mjolnir did, for he was still able to wield her. But they were correct that Thor’s story, or at least his presence in Loki’s room with Mjolnir, had played some unwitting role in helping Loki understand Odin’s spell and break it.

“Go,” Stark had said, “spend some time with Jane. We’ll call you if anything comes up.”

But fourteen months had gone by—more than a year—and they hadn’t called, and Thor knew from watching the news that more than a few things had come up. He had left Asgard for Midgard and disappointed his father and his oldest friends, and now his new friends on Midgard no longer trusted him. Because of Loki.

Thor looked at Jane standing over him. Why did he miss Loki? He was in love with Jane, and she loved him. They had lived together all this time, and surely there was more tenderness in one hour with her than in a century with Loki. He had a chance for simple happiness with her, but was that really what he wanted? It seemed as if each time he thought of Loki everything fell apart.

He looked up at Jane’s face, flushed red gold by the sunrise. _If you knew where Loki was, would you go to him?_ “I don’t know,” he whispered. “Jane, I can’t lie to you. But I don’t want Loki to ruin what we have.”

Her hair veiled her face as she turned away and bent to pick up her daypack. “Let’s go back to base,” she said. “I’m expecting a call.”

They drove in silence to Jane’s base, the abandoned restaurant on the edge of town where she had set up her monitoring equipment.

When they reached the doorway, Jane turned to him. Thor started to speak, but she held up a hand to stop him. “I have to work. Another disturbance was recorded, and I’m going to compare notes with Eric, who’s at an observatory in Finland. That makes six times in two months we’ve recorded the same phenomenon somewhere in northern Greece. The next step will be to go there and see what’s happening—if we can figure out exactly where it is.”

“A disturbance?” Thor asked, worried. “Could it have been the Bifrost?” _Or Loki_ , he thought, and pushed the words away. Not everything that happened in the universe was connected to his brother.

Jane shook her head. “Not the Bifrost. Different readings. But it could have been something similar.” Her eyes were distant, and she clearly wanted to get away from him and bury herself in work.

“Can I help?” Thor asked hesitantly.

Jane met his eyes. He saw some new distance there, which was what he deserved. “Why don’t you go up on the roof and try the meditation techniques I showed you? Maybe you need to get in touch with your feelings.” She scoffed and shook her head. “I don’t want to be mean, Thor, but I’m not waiting around until Loki calls you one day and you run off with him. Figure out what you want. Make a decision. Then stay or go.”

“Jane,” Thor said, his voice harsh with emotion, “the last thing I want to do is hurt you.”

“You’ve already done that,” she said, “but I’m not as fragile as you think. I’m just tired of being manipulated by your brother, or whatever he is, who isn’t even here.” She went inside and sat immediately at her console. She took the mouse in her hand and the screen jumped to life. Thor went upstairs to the roof.

He sat on the floor, carefully arranging his legs into the lotus position Jane had taught him. Maybe she was right. Maybe meditation would help him understand what he wanted. Or maybe it would ease this knot of guilt and loss that ached in his gut.

He placed one hand on each knee, palm up, thumb and forefinger touching in a circle, and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and let it out, and then started breathing regularly, paying attention to his breath and nothing else. Over and over, he stilled his mind, ignoring the thoughts and memories that vied for his attention, starting over each time he failed, without reproaching himself. Just sitting there in the early morning sun was restful, with nothing but a few twitters of birdsong and the occasional monotone of a passing vehicle to break the silence. He started getting the way of it, and for a few seconds he seemed to have stilled the cacophony and was beginning to feel a modicum of peace washing through him.

And that was when he felt it. Loki’s presence in his mind like a hammer blow.

Thor’s eyes shot open. He gasped, reaching around blindly as if his brother were there, just before him. The feeling faded, and Thor found himself standing on his feet, looking around in desperate confusion. Loki was far away, and he was in such agony that Thor could feel it in his own body—crippling pain, pain and despair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More soon!


	3. Old Friends

Standing at the bar, Tony Stark absent-mindedly clinked the ice cubes in his drink as he looked steadily at Thor. Cap stood next to him, while Natasha and Hawkeye sat on one of the sofas in the Avengers’ usual meeting room in Stark’s quarters. Pepper was in the next room, putting some papers in order, but she lingered near the doorway, looking watchfully at Stark.

“Are you serious?” Stark said finally. “You want us to go running off to the Balkans looking for Loki because you had a dream?”

“It wasn’t a dream,” Thor said stubbornly. “Jane said there have been some sort of disturbances in northern Greece. Some sort of passageway keeps opening. There could be a connection.” 

“What aren’t you telling me?” Stark asked. He finished his drink, setting the glass on the bar, and folded his arms. “Why would Loki be there? Why would he be in Greece? Does he love moussaka, or what?”

Thor began reluctantly. “Loki has a history in that area. It is near a ‘way’ he used to take to Midgard from elsewhere in the Nine Realms. There are others, too, but I never knew all of his passages. The one in Greece....” Thor broke off uncomfortably.

“Let me guess,” Hawkeye said shrewdly, “he played a trick on someone there.” 

“He did something...unfortunate to a minor goddess of the Greeks,” Thor admitted. “She was an oracle. He fooled her last worshippers by changing the location of her sacred spring. Her cult died out soon after.” Thor watched their faces uncomfortably, knowing that the story was not helping his case that Loki needed to be rescued.

“And you think he might go back there?” Cap asked skeptically. “What for? Didn’t you say her cult died out hundreds of years ago?”

“He didn’t go looking for her,” Thor explained, feeling a little lost at trying to explain Loki’s behavior. “He just happened to find her. If he wanted to come to Midgard without being seen, he might pass through there.”

“So, what was the disturbance Jane detected? Could that have been Loki traveling between worlds?” Cap’s voice was even, businesslike. None of them was showing Thor much sign of friendship at the moment. Thor started to wonder why he had come.

“Loki is more subtle than that,” Thor continued doggedly. “But maybe someone was lying in wait for him. Maybe someone was going to ‘ways’ he used to take and looking for him. Or perhaps he has shown someone the paths he used so they can come to Midgard.” Thor was grasping at straws, and they all knew it. There was nothing concrete linking Loki to these events besides a feeling. For all Thor knew, Loki could be in captivity on Nifelheim or anywhere else on the World Tree.

“So you’re saying that the energy signature Jane detected doesn’t fit Loki’s mode of travel?” Hawkeye asked.

“When Loki travels,” Thor said miserably, “he is not detected.” He knew he had just completely undermined his own argument.

“But something or someone is traveling through there, even if it isn’t Loki,” Stark said thoughtfully. “I suppose I could go take a look. It would get me out of going to the Stanford Robotics Conference.” Stark glanced over his shoulder at the doorway where Pepper now had given up any pretense of working.

“But you’re the keynote speaker,” she said mournfully.

Stark smirked. “All the more reason not to go.”

Pepper sighed and shook her head. “Who are they going to get on such short notice? If you keep doing this you won’t get asked to these things anymore.”

Stark shrugged. “That’s their problem. Why did they ask me, anyway?”

“You lobbied for it,” Pepper said, exasperated, as the others in the room shifted uncomfortably, trying to appear not to be listening.

To his credit, Stark looked slightly abashed. “Tell them I changed my mind,” he said plaintively.

Pepper laughed and shook her head. “Of course you did,” she said.

***

To keep their plans from S.H.I.E.L.D. for the moment, Stark had decided that they needed to take a commercial airline flight. Banner had no love for S.H.I.E.L.D., but he figured that Homeland Security would flag their names and pass them on to S.H.I.E.L.D. before their flight had landed. But at least there would be a slight delay, and they might be able to figure out if there was anything worth bothering about in Greece before Fury descended on them.

Banner had other, more personal, problems with airline flights. One was that he was forced to dope himself up on a cocktail of beta-blockers and downers before flying. The other problem was Tony Stark.

It was never simple, boarding a commercial flight with Tony. He always flew first class, of course, so he started drinking in the lounge before the flight. By the time the flight was boarding, Tony was brusque and impatient with everyone, rude and demanding to anyone wearing a uniform, and on the edge of harassment with the airhostesses. There was always some red tape to go through about having the Iron Man suit on board—some sensible rule against explosive devices—and Tony always felt compelled to become abusive during the interview when he showed his papers from the NSA.

Maybe Pepper had some way of keeping Tony in check, but Banner and Cap were at a loss. He had been drinking noticeably more since the Battle of New York, and even more since the surgery to remove the shrapnel and the reactor from his chest. The others were already discussing an intervention, although everyone was afraid to mention it to Pepper, without whose help it was doomed to failure.

The two of them trailed behind Tony as he stormed through the terminal, apologizing as fast as they could, waiting for the moment they feared—when someone would have had enough of Tony’s garbage and call an air marshal to put their friend in cuffs and haul him off. Luckily, Banner was safely stoked on a mega-dose of beta-blockers, so the stress of Tony’s antics hardly reached him at all.

Finally, with Tony’s suit safely stowed below, they settled into their soft leather seats and watched Tony subside into alcoholic sullenness. Only then did Bruce and Cap dare to relax and order a couple of soft drinks. They knew that Tony would sleep for eight hours and drink cokes for the remaining two, drying out over the eleven-hour flight to prepare for the mission.

They arrived around noon, local time, emerging from the crowded terminal into a scorching, dusty Athenian summer day. Although they could have lined up an Army helicopter to get them quickly to Epirus, they had not wanted to involve any authorities who could rat them out to S.H.I.E.L.D. until they knew what was going on here—was it Loki or not? And if it was Loki, was he pulling a prank to get Thor’s attention, or was something really wrong? Instead they drove northwest from Athens in a rented Mercedes, a drive that took half as long as the flight. Banner wished that Tony had let Thor come with them, but he and Cap had decided that Loki’s brother was too compromised to be reliable.

Tony insisted on driving of course, loving the feel of the big car hugging the winding roads that snaked through small villages as they climbed into the hills. At dusk they reached Ioannina, a small city on a lake from which mosquitos rose in dense clouds as soon as the sun went down. Bruce was impervious to the insects, but as they walked he watched with amusement while his companions swatted futilely at them.

“Watch out, Cap,” he joked, “sucking your blood might create super mosquitos.”

Cap tried to smile at the lame attempt at humor, but Bruce could tell he was too on edge about the mission to allow himself to be distracted, even for a second.

There was a street fair outside of town, with vendors selling goat stew, as well as _tiropita_ and _halva_ —savory cheese pies and almond cake. Cap wanted to drive straight through into the hills, but Tony insisted on stopping to eat. They walked through the market, happy to stretch their legs after the long ride, looking at the wares for sale: _brikis_ for making coffee, kitchenware, books, children’s toys and games, and then there were live animals—chickens of all descriptions, pigs, and goats with their weird cats’ eyes.

Bruce wished he could enjoy being here, but he was nervous, hoping to get further up into the mountains, where, if something happened and the Other Guy decided to put in an appearance, he wouldn’t hurt anybody. The beta-blockers he had taken before the flight, and later on the plane, were wearing off, and he didn’t dare take any more if he wanted to remain alert.

Stark had struck up a conversation of sorts with one of the merchants and he was taking shots of _raki_ , the local white lightning. With Jarvis translating into his ear, he was able to understand what the guy was saying to him, even if he couldn’t respond very well. Bruce resolved not to let him drive any more tonight, even if he stopped drinking now. He and Cap traded a glance, and Bruce laid a hand on Tony’s shoulder and spoke into his ear.

“Either Cap drives the rest of the way, or we hole up here for a couple of hours. Your choice.”

Tony tossed back a shot and muttered, “Neither.” Wheeling away from the booth, he led the way back towards the car, pushing through the crowds.

The car was parked at the edge of a dusty field, near the road they needed to take up into the craggy hills that towered over it. Stark got clear of the crowd first and walked briskly towards the car when something, probably Jarvis, brought him up short. Cap and Banner flanked him, stopping a moment after he did. Two dim shapes stood by the car, leaning against it and waiting, their features in shadow.

It was late, and the fair was starting to wind down. The field resounded with the sound of happy good-byes and revving engines. The Mercedes had been surrounded by other vehicles earlier, but now it was isolated in the spreading darkness. 

Bruce could feel his heartbeat quickening. His control always faltered when exhaustion caught up with him. _Not here_ , he thought, trying to keep the panic at bay. _I have to get away._

“Shit,” Stark said suddenly. “Jarvis says that there’s a Cyprian sticker on the rental car. Maybe these guys are hanging around to see if we’re Turkish. They’re looking for a fight.”

“What difference would that make?” Cap asked, puzzled.

“The island of Cyprus is divided into two parts, Greek and Turkish. They don’t like each other much,” Stark explained quickly. He waved one hand dismissively. “Politics.”

“So if we show them we aren’t Turkish, they should leave,” Cap said reasonably.

“In principle,” Bruce said, “but I’m not at my best right now, and it would only take one punch to set me off. I need to get out of here.”

“Go ahead,” said Cap. “We’ll take care of them and meet you here. If you don’t come back within an hour we’ll meet up the road at Monodendri.”

Bruce nodded. After his fugues, as he thought of them, he always made sure he was prepared to navigate his way back where he was supposed to be. He had studied the maps of this area for hours in case something like this happened.

“Damn it, Banner,” Stark muttered, “why didn’t you let me give you that homing implant? Jarvis could have tracked you.” They had discussed this at great length back at Stark Tower. Banner had made the unassailable point—he thought—that if Jarvis could track him, so could the bad guys. But Tony, like all inventors, insisted that no one else would be able to figure out his system. 

“Because I’m not a dog,” Bruce snarled. When he was close to turning, his emotions overflowed like a raging river, drowning all reticence, all politeness, all friendship, in their furious rush. His heart was pounding harder now, and his voice sounded harsh and deep, even to his own ears. Time to leave, before he lost control. Taking off at a dead run, he crossed the road and went straight up the rocks on the other side into the woods. By the time he hit the trees, the Other Guy was in control, and Bruce was lost in a nightmare.

***

“Thor,” Loki gasped, “I knew you’d come.” Even as he said the words, he couldn’t believe he was saying them. There was a weird, wavering quality to his view of Thor’s face, and, as he watched, the features turned gray and wizened. The Chitauri standing over him brought his arm around to backhand Loki across the face. He flew backwards, smacking hard against the stone floor, and tried to scramble away. A metal boot slammed into his back as he writhed against the stone. He knew what had happened. Once again, while being beaten, he had blacked out and hallucinated the thing he most wanted to see: his brother’s face.

Loki hadn’t expected the tortures to cease once he had set the trap, but he also hadn’t expected them to redouble.

Instead of using finesse, varying the torments from day to day, focusing on different parts of his body, his torturers had turned to brute force. They beat him now in a way that felt random, but it also felt as if the one giving the orders was enjoying himself vicariously through the actions of his drones. Loki remembered The Other, Thanos’ lieutenant. This felt like his work. He had probably been punished for the colossal failure in New York, and now he was passing it on. They were still stopping short of killing him, but they were no longer using as much restraint as they had been. Mainly he was whipped and beaten, no longer just for clearly defined sessions, but for hours on end. His captors didn’t let him sleep very long anymore. Although they no longer gagged him, he often lacked the strength to scream.

He had been pummeled so often that his head was muddled sometimes, and he had extended conversations with Thor, thinking them real. Sometimes he plotted, constructing immense, convoluted plans involving the Avengers, Odin, and all the armies of Asgard, where Loki moved them all against Thanos from a distance like chess pieces on a board as vast as the universe. Even in his fantasies, he seldom reached checkmate. But he did have a glimmer of a plan, an idea how to kill Thanos—if he could lay hands on the power he needed, and find a way to draw Thanos out and get his attention. But first, he had to leave this place alive.

It had been many days since he had called to Thor in distress. Had Thor felt it? Was he on his way? Or were these punishments a way of letting Loki know his message had failed? If Thor had heard, would he arrive before the Chitauri killed him? Loki knew he had fractured ribs because it hurt to breathe. His other injuries, he refused to contemplate. Was there something the Chitauri wanted that kept them here and gave them more time to toy with him? He was missing a huge piece of the puzzle: why did Thanos need Loki to bait a trap? Which of the Avengers did Thanos want, or did he intend to destroy them all?

***

Cap sighed. “We said we’d wait an hour and then go to Monodendri. It’s been more than an hour now. We should get on the road.”

He looked around dubiously. It was a moonless night, and here in the middle of nowhere it was pitch dark. Everyone had left the fair, except for two vendors at the other end of the field, who were preparing to drive off, having a loud conversation from their trucks. The two young men looking for trouble had indeed been waiting to see if they were Turks, but they had also been drunk, and Cap had easily dispatched them with a punch or two and a shove in the right direction.

“You go,” Stark said, opening the trunk. “I’m going to take a look around.”

“Come on, Tony,” Cap said angrily. “That isn’t the plan. If anyone sees you and reports a UFO then S.H.I.E.L.D. will find out we came up here without telling them.”

“I’ll be careful.” He already had the suitcase open, and bits of the suit were flying out to clap themselves onto his limbs.

“It’s dark,” Cap said, frustrated. “What do you think you’ll see?”

“If there’s a base, I’ll see it, or maybe I’ll find Banner.”

He took off into the night sky. Cap watched him go, and then had a moment of panic while looking for the car keys with a dying flashlight, but they were sitting in the drink holder between the seats. He adjusted the mirrors and turned carefully out onto the dark road. He hoped he wouldn’t get stopped. He didn’t have Jarvis to translate for him and he certainly didn’t speak Greek.

***

When Banner opened his eyes, he couldn’t see.

He had landed in a thicket sheltered by huge rocks on the side of a mountain. When he managed to sit up and part the branches he could see the stars twinkling in a black velvet sky. So many stars! He hoped he could navigate by them. He had gotten good at that on his solitary travels. Between the stars and the maps he had memorized, he ought to be able to find the meeting point, as long as he could find a road.

He also found he had a scrap of his clothing left. At least he still had pants, though they were mostly shredded. He had to make a knot in the waistband to keep them on.

After these fugues he felt much as if he had experienced a seizure, at least according to what he’d read. But sometimes he also felt rested, and temporarily stronger than he had before. He was thankful for a vestige of the Other Guy’s strength as he shoved his way through thick underbrush, looking for a road, or at least a trail.

Overhead there was a whoosh, and something low with running lights passed over his head. Iron Man.

“Tony!” he yelled, waving his arms. Strangely, Stark had been traveling fast—too fast for a search pattern. Banner sought higher ground, struggling up a rock-strewn slope. He was pushing his blood pressure a bit, he knew, so he eased back, trying to breathe regularly.

He was on top of a ridge now and had a good vantage point on the wooded hillside. Above him, Iron Man looped around and came back towards him, but before he could react, he saw a flash, and the suit went into a spin and tumbled into the forest. Someone had shot Tony out of the sky.

Banner slid down through the rocks and brush on the other side of the hill, trying to keep his bearings. Soon he was pushing through thick branches, concentrating on his heartbeat as he tried to go in a straight line. He thought he might have seen a road down here from the top of the ridge. If he could reach it, he would make better time.

He must have been making a lot of noise, because when he finally reached the road the Chitauri were waiting for him—ten of them in formation, as silent as death. He had a frisson of fear when he saw them neatly lined up like stick figures in the starlight. He was lucky he had just come back from a fugue. If turning was ever voluntary, it was now, just after the Other Guy had gone back to wherever he went. He did not resist when one of the cyborg soldiers grabbed him by the arm and led him away down a forested path. It would be more useful to be captured than to escape now, and once he got there and found Tony, the Other Guy could break them out.

As they dragged him through a slit in the rocks into a cave, a new worry assailed him. What if Loki were assembling the Chitauri for a new assault on the Earth? Maybe this was all an elaborate trick by Thor’s brother to pull the Avengers in and dispose of them before making his move. In that case Thor was just a pawn once again, and Tony had been right to make him stay in New York.


	4. Discoveries

Underground, Bruce was amazed to see that the cave soon took on enormous proportions, stretching away into the distance above and all around him. They dragged him in near darkness through room after room, poorly lit by the occasional glowing fixture on the wall. No wires connected these lights, and their hazy glow never blinked or varied.

Further they went, up and down stairs cut into the rock, until he lost all sense of where he was. Finally, they reached a dim, cavernous room where he saw metal bars set into the living rock to make a primitive cage. The Chitauri that held his arm opened it, pushed him inside, and shut the door with a clang.

As Bruce’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw a figure sitting huddled in the corner, staring at him through lank hair. Not Tony. Loki. 

“Welcome, Dr. Banner,” Loki said with exaggerated and bitter grace. “Of all the possible horrors my mind has conjured up, I never thought the Chitauri would have the imagination to lock me in a cell with you. That really is the stuff of nightmares.” 

Bruce walked over and squatted down beside him, discovering with shock that the man was naked. What he had mistaken in the dimness for clothing was dried blood from wounds on every part of his body. There were rings of angry red welts around his neck from collarbone to chin. His chest and arms were lacerated, bloody. He looked exhausted, sickly, thinner than ever. The chains on his hands and ankles were thick and bulky, and Bruce wondered how heavy they must be. The cell was foul, the cave floor’s greasy stones covered with a layer of matted straw where something rustled briefly and was still.

“I thought it would be Tony,” Bruce said softly, glancing at the retreating guards. “I saw him get shot down. We thought you were behind this, but you’re here. Have you seen him? Do you know what’s going on?”

Loki’s chuckle was barely audible. “Ah, you see, you were almost right. I’m not behind it, but I am at the bottom of it.” He sounded strained, breathless, on edge, more than a little manic. “Before I answer your questions, tell me—are you real? I don’t want to waste any more time talking to hallucinations.”

After a moment of doubt, Bruce was starting to believe that Loki was in genuine distress. He laid a hand gently on Loki’s throat, trying to feel the pulse there. It was weak and thready—bad signs in a human. Was Loki capable of creating an illusion this complex and fine?

“How long have you been here?” Bruce asked softly but urgently. “Why are the Chitauri coming after us now? Who’s leading them?”

Loki’s voice was strained, but his eyes were bright with intelligence. “I cannot say his name. It could direct his attention to us. You don’t know of him—he is from beyond the Nine Realms.” Loki fell silent, taking shallow breaths. “I’ve been here...well over two months, now,” he said carefully, as if reluctant to remind himself. “Did Thor receive my message? Is he here?”

“He did. But he didn’t come.” Bruce sensed Loki’s anger and disappointment vibrating through the air between them. “Tony didn’t trust him. He made Thor stay in New York.”

Loki’s laugh was low and shaky. “Didn’t trust Thor? The most innocent and trustworthy man in the Nine Realms? The trap was set for Thor, not Stark. Thor was supposed to come.”

“Trap?” Bruce bristled. “So, you _are_ working with them?” He stood and looked down at Loki in the dim light, feeling his blood pressure rise.

“The Chitauri’s trap, not mine,” Loki snapped. “Do I look as if I’m working _with_ them? They tortured me until I called to Thor for help. Of course it was a trap, though I suspect they hoped I wouldn’t realize that. I assumed they wanted Thor, but....” He looked up at Bruce appraisingly as if a thought had just struck him. “Perhaps I was wrong.”

Bruce wondered again if all of this was a sham, an appearance assumed by Loki. But, why? What could he possibly gain? “Can’t you get out of those restraints?” he asked.

Loki laughed again and shook his head. “Suspicious, aren’t we? I can’t, but you can.”

“How? They look pretty strong. The Other Guy could break them, but he’d probably kill you first.”

Loki held up his bound wrists and showed the ornate cuffs. “It’s not the strength of the metal that keeps me from breaking out, it’s the spells cast on them. The reason there are so many layers is that each one has a circle of runes. If one rune gets damaged in any circle, that circle ceases to work, but all the others hold. So if you deface one rune in each set....”

“How? By scratching them out?”

Loki nodded. “As you finish each circle, it will drop off. When I’m free, you become the Monster and break down the door. 

Bruce recoiled from the epithet. He took a few steps away, then forced himself to unclench his fists before he spoke. “Let me guess, it also has runes on it.”

“But that’s the beauty of it—brute force can still destroy it. And then we fight our way out of here.” 

Bruce thought, looking down at Loki speculatively. “Why do you always have to call me a monster?”

Loki shrugged. “Because I’m a monster too. That’s the part of you I understand. The shame of it is in you. I carry it, too.”

The last thing Bruce wanted was to have a personal conversation with Loki, but he had started it. “I don’t see you turning green and breaking things.”

“Not green,” Loki said, meeting his eyes with a cold gaze that suddenly sparkled like frost. He looked as if his lips were reluctant to form the next word. “Blue.” They looked at each other a moment. “So, after all, Stark did come here to find me, and he brought you along,” Loki said slowly. “I’m touched.”

“Don’t be.” Bruce found that he was trying to control his blood pressure again. Just talking with Loki for a few minutes made him long for his beta-blocker cocktail. “Why can’t you scratch the runes out yourself, with a stone or something?”

Loki sounded impatient. “Because they aren’t stupid, despite appearances. They took the trouble to put the vital runes in an indentation. I can’t get to them, and, believe me, I’ve tried. Do you have anything made of metal? A knife? Anything pointed?”

Bruce looked down at his ruined pants. One pocket was partly intact. He reached in, hoping for nothing, and came out with a paper clip. He and Loki grinned at each other as if the previous conversation had never been.

“Splendid,” said Loki, eyeing it eagerly. “You’ll need to hurry,” he added. “It must be almost dawn. They usually come and get me at about this time.”

Unfolding the paper clip, Bruce knelt in the straw and scratched at the place Loki showed him. With a click the first set of cuffs opened and fell off.

“All right, there are five more,” Loki said. “It should go faster now. All you have to do is make the runes unreadable.” 

In the background they could hear the clanking of the Chitauri walking back and forth in other chambers of the cave. The lack of voices suddenly struck Bruce as eerie. They had captured him and led him here without speaking a word. He could feel his pulse accelerating as he worked and wondered if talking would distract him. The second set of cuffs clicked open.

“Are the Chitauri capable of speech?” he asked. “I haven’t heard them say one word.”

“They’re part of a hive mind,” Loki answered. “There is one who speaks for them all, but I haven’t seen him here.”

“Does he have a name? Or can’t you say his name either?” Bruce asked skeptically.

“He’s called ‘The Other,’” Loki said. “Do you think making conversation will help you to go faster? I think perhaps not.” The third set of cuffs fell in the straw.

“It might help me to calm down,” Bruce said through gritted teeth. “If the Other Guy comes out while I’m doing this he’ll rip your head off.”

“Good point,” said Loki archly. “Well, then, perhaps I should help. Hmm, let me think.... Have you ever been in love?”

On second thought, making conversation with Loki was probably not the calmest thing Bruce could be doing. Trust Loki to find a sore spot and poke it. What the hell was he supposed to do with that question? “Have you?” Bruce countered.

“Are you serious?” Loki laughed hard enough to rattle his chains.

“With your brother?” Bruce must have shown a little too much distaste when he said it.

Loki answered a different question. “Thor is not my brother,” he said firmly. 

“You thought he was.”

“So what?”

“You...had sex with him.” Bruce couldn’t believe he had just blurted it out.

“Did he tell you that?” Loki asked sharply.

“I overheard him talking to you. The night you escaped from Stark Tower.”

“Ah, yes,” Loki drawled. “Thor got rather sentimental that night. Whatever we had was over a long time ago. People on this landmass were still wearing bearskins and shooting each other with stone-tipped arrows.”

During this conversation Bruce had removed two more layers from the complex restraints. Only one remained. He found the rune and started scratching at it. This one was in a deep indentation, and the paper clip wasn’t strong enough to make a significant scratch. He worked at it doggedly, wanting to be done and get out of this place.

“Have you?” Loki said suddenly.

“Have I what?” Bruce was startled enough to stop scratching at the rune for a second.

“Ever been in love?”

Bruce shrugged. “Once.” He had no intention of telling Loki about Betty.

“Who was she?”

“My boss’s daughter.”

Loki grinned. “Your sister.”

Bruce laughed, but there was no humor in it. “There’s a reason people don’t like you.” The last set of cuffs fell away.

Loki cocked his head and smiled. “I work at it.” With deft fingers he plucked the paper clip from Bruce’s fingers and bent forward to work on the cuffs around his ankles. He seemed better now, stronger, as if the prospect of release had helped him find a reserve of energy somewhere. Or else the weakness had been an act to convince Bruce to help him.

Bruce stood, easing his aching shoulders and feeling his heart rate go down. They were close, and soon they would get out of this place and have a chance to look for Tony. “How many layers are left?” he asked.

“Three,” Loki said tersely.

One snapped off, then another. Loki bent further and Bruce could hear him breathing hard. And then something in the atmosphere changed, and it took him a few seconds to figure out what it was.

The quality of sound in the vault had shifted, become focused. Instead of vague echoes, he heard tromping feet in unison heading towards them.

“They’re coming,” he said.

“I know.” Loki’s face was drawn and intent. He grunted once and the cuffs came off in his hand. He flung them across the cell to clang against the metal bars.

Bruce stepped back into the corner of the cage. Loki was standing, eyes closed, surrounded by green-gold light. His wounds stopped bleeding, and then he was dressed in his Asgardian armor, and his eyes were shining with the manic light of lust for the fight to come.

“Break the door down,” Loki said. “I will find you when the battle is done.”

“The Other Guy doesn’t like you very much,” Bruce said. “He’ll....”

Loki disappeared. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. Bruce almost expected to see his Cheshire Cat smile hovering in the air.

***

Thor paced back and forth across the great room at the top of Stark Tower. Moments before, Cap had called to tell them that Jarvis had lost track of Dr. Banner, and that Tony had apparently been shot down and was not responding to his com.

Thor knew he should have insisted on going on the mission. He seemed to carry a stone in his gut that weighed him down with worry and suspicion. Loki.... was he behind this? He had worked with the Chitauri once before. But could he have faked that message to Thor, where he projected so much pain that it had ached in Thor’s bones for a day?

Hawkeye wandered into the room to get a cup of coffee.

“You okay?” he asked, looking at Thor appraisingly.

“I don’t know,” Thor said explosively. “You all suspect me of working against you, of plotting with Loki. If only you would understand that I do not know what my brother is doing or planning, or where he is. If this was a trap, it was meant for me, and I should have been the one to fall into it.”

Hawkeye’s cool blue eyes were impossible to read. “It looks like a trap, and apparently Loki set it. I’m inclined to believe that you had nothing to do with it.”

Thor laughed humorlessly. “That doesn’t make me feel better. I would wish that....”

What did he wish? That Loki was in pain, that he had called out to Thor in desperation? That he had nothing to do with this attack? And who was behind it? The Chitauri or another unknown enemy? Hawkeye was waiting for him to finish, head titled back, eyes riveted on Thor’s face.

“I would wish to know what is happening,” he finished a bit defiantly, conscious of being judged. “I would wish to know Loki’s part in this.” And he wished he could take action, instead of being held a voluntary prisoner by his friends’ mistrust.

“Why don’t you join us downstairs in the control room?” Hawkeye suggested. Thor trailed after him, seething with righteous anger.

***

To Bruce, the battle had gone by like a dream. Only flashes of it remained in his mind: a ball of gold-green magic flying by, making the Other Guy laugh in ferocious delight as it exploded the head of a Chitauri soldier; a moment where he swept six soldiers away in one blow, throwing them down a tunnel where they rolled together in a pile of bodies. Through it all, he had seen Loki, appearing and disappearing, throwing magic or daggers that came from god-knew-where, fighting flat out against the Chitauri with feral grace.

And now Bruce lay naked on the cold, hard stone, slowly regaining the use of reason. He felt a presence near him and started. Loki was hunkered down next to him in the near darkness. Bruce suddenly realized how quiet it had become.

“They’ve gone,” Loki said quietly. “You fought well. But the battle lasted so long because it was a distraction. There was something they did not want us to see. If you can walk, we should go and seek it now.”

Bruce stood, embarrassed by his nakedness, and, without a word, Loki waved a hand to clothe him in pants and a shirt, garments, he realized, much like those he had worn before when Loki had been a prisoner at Stark Tower.

They walked silently through halls, and up and down stone stairways, barely lit by the weird Chitauri lights. When Bruce stepped over to touch one, Loki hissed a warning at him and, with a gesture, sent it tumbling to the ground, where it bubbled and boiled on the stone before subsiding into darkness.

The cave sent their footsteps reverberating eerily, simulating marching armies and other sounds Bruce’s imagination dreaded to hear. They reached a crossroads, and Loki stood still, putting a finger to his lips.

“There is someone here,” he said, holding up a hand as he listened. Suddenly and silently he took off down a long, dark tunnel, leaving Bruce to trot clumsily after him, trying not to be left behind. When Loki stopped at the next crossroads Bruce nearly ran into his back.

Soon there was no light at all, and Loki resorted to conjuring a flame in midair that floated along ahead, showing them the ground before them, but not much more.

The air grew closer, the ceiling so low that both of them had to walk a bit stooped. The thought crossed Bruce’s mind that Loki was leading him into the depths of the earth, only to disappear without warning to leave him wandering here. A year before, in Stark Tower, Loki had tried to send him into a fugue with insinuations about Stark and his friends wanting to be rid of him. What if the Other Guy came out now and brought the ceiling down? Would Bruce be trapped under this mountain forever? If that was his fate, perhaps it was fitting. That way he could never hurt anyone again. He shook his head, trying to clear away the gloomy thoughts. He wished he could get out of this cave and feel like himself again.

But the stone beneath their feet rose suddenly, and a breath of air turned into a steady breeze, coming from somewhere in the pitch-blackness ahead. They had taken so many turns that Bruce knew he was completely dependent on Loki to find his way out of this place, and that was not a comfortable position to be in.

Suddenly, Loki paused, holding a hand up for silence as he listened. “There,” he said with satisfaction, and darted ahead so quickly that again Bruce was left in the dark.

“Wait!” he shouted, moving as fast as he dared on the wet, uneven stone. He turned a corner and saw light ahead. He paused, leaning against the stone wall, trying to return his heart rate to a safe level. “Where are you?”

“I’m just here.” Loki’s voice was low, echoing weirdly.

Bruce turned another corner and saw him—or them.

Loki was hunkered down over a man stretched out on the ground, lying very still. It was Stark. Loki looked up at Bruce, removing his hand from Tony’s throat.

“He’s barely alive,” Loki said simply. “They’ve beaten him badly.” 

“How badly?” Bruce knelt and saw with a wrenching sensation in his gut that there was fresh blood welling out of Tony’s ear. 

“You mortals are so fragile,” Loki said critically. He laid one hand on Stark’s head and another on his chest. Green-gold light played up and down like vapor across Stark’s body. Loki removed his hands and sat back on his heels. “He’ll live.” 

“We’ll have to find something to carry him with,” Bruce said. “I hate to leave him here, but maybe we could go outside and find some....” 

Loki scoffed, raising his eyebrows. He picked Stark up easily and slung him over one shoulder, striding away down the tunnel into the draft, which was becoming stronger with each step they took.

“But, wait,” Bruce said, a bit frantically, “he just had a serious head injury. How can you carry him like that?”

“I healed him,” Loki said simply, without slowing down.

Bruce marveled at Loki’s strength. He realized that he had become used to seeing Loki as a human during his captivity in New York. He needed to remember that Loki at full power was a formidable enemy. Bruce had helped him, and Loki seemed to be returning the favor, but there could be limits to his cooperation. Bruce followed as closely as he could as they traversed several large caverns and finally reached a crawlway to the outside world.


	5. Bargains

By the time they found Cap and the car, they had walked halfway to Monodendri, where Cap had been alternately waiting and driving back and forth for hours, getting more and more frantic and frustrated. When the car came around a curve and Cap saw Loki in the headlights, he stopped in the middle of the road and jumped out of the car, assuming a defensive posture with his shield.

“Stop right there,” he said warningly.

“Cap, wait,” Bruce said. “It’s okay.”

Ignoring them both, Loki walked up to the car, opened the back door, and placed Stark on the seat inside. “You had better contact, Stark Tower,” he said to Cap, “and tell them to disconnect from the internet and the grid. The longer they stay connected, the greater the risk.”

Bruce and Cap stared at him in confusion. 

“Why?” Cap asked suspiciously. “And what do you know about the internet, anyway?”

Loki looked between them, from one to the other, and then he laughed. “My, you _are_ slow. I brought Stark back to you, but you’re still worried about me. The Chitauri have gone from Midgard, and they have him. They’re going to use him against you as soon as they can.”

“Have who?” Bruce asked, with a feeling of dread that he was missing something vital. “Tony is here. You healed him and brought him back. 

Loki’s eyes blazed with impatience. “Think, you fools!” he said. “Where is Stark’s metal suit? They didn’t want Stark. They pulled him out of his suit and threw him away. It wasn’t about me, or Stark, or Thor. They wanted Jarvis.”

There were a few seconds of silence. Then Cap blanched and dove into the car, rummaging for the phone.

Stark stirred in the back seat. “Jarvis?” he murmured. “Where’s Jarvis?”

Loki turned to face Bruce. “I will continue to search for the Chitauri,” he said. “They may still be in the Nine Realms.”

Loki turned to leave, but Bruce caught him by the arm. The look Loki threw him made him withdraw his hand quickly, since he dearly wanted to avoid a third fugue of the night. 

“Come back with us to New York,” Bruce said. “I’m not quite sure why you’re helping us, but it seems as if you have a score to settle with the Chitauri. We need to know more about them—who’s commanding them, and what do they want with Jarvis?”

“We have a common enemy,” Loki agreed evasively. “He wants your world and he wants to destroy me.”

“So, after they got Jarvis, they would have killed you, if I hadn’t helped you get the cuffs off?” Loki nodded almost imperceptibly. “Who is their leader? We don’t even know who we’re fighting.”

Loki sighed. “I cannot say. All you need to know is that he means to destroy everything. He worships death.”

“And you worked with him, when you led the Chitauri here before?” Loki looked at Bruce ferociously, as if he had been slapped. Bruce suddenly wished he could take the words back.

“Do you think I wanted to?” Loki asked with blazing eyes.

“Actually, I don’t know,” Bruce said slowly, meeting his gaze. “It sure seemed as if you did.”

“Did I seem as if I were in my right mind when I first met you on the helicarrier?” Loki asked carefully.

“Not exactly.” Bruce remembered his own words to Tony: _You can smell crazy on him._ “You had just removed a guy’s eyeball in front of two hundred people so you could get into a safe. 

Loki looked at him for a minute. In the background they could hear Cap frantically telling Hawkeye what had happened. “I don’t expect you to understand,” Loki said.

“You’re right. I don’t,” Bruce replied. Loki turned his back and started walking away. Bruce wondered whether it would be better to bring Loki back to New York so they could keep an eye on him, and possibly get some information, or if he would be more trouble than he was worth. Could he really help them, or would trusting him bring another catastrophe down on them? Following him here had already almost cost Tony his life. “But maybe you can explain it to me,” he said to Loki’s retreating back.

Loki stopped and turned his head. “I do not make excuses,” he said simply, as if that explained everything, and continued down the road.

“Where are you going?” Somehow Bruce had become unaccountably desperate to bring Loki back to New York, when at any other time he would have been desperate to keep him away.

Loki turned again to face him. “I have something I must do. Is my brother at Stark Tower?” Bruce nodded assent. “Then I will see you there.” He disappeared.

***

As soon as he was out of their sight, Loki made his way back to the cave and headed towards the cavern where he had been held captive, making much faster progress now that he didn’t have Banner trailing behind him. The place was empty, and his footsteps were close to silent.

Squatting low in the darkness, Loki heard the plink of water dripping on ageless stone. He had come back to this cave, to its deepest point, to gather the traces of the magic he had felt here, to incorporate them into himself. Without that magic, he would soon need to eat and sleep, and he saw no possibility of doing either soon. 

The Chitauri had kept him without food, almost without sleep. They had injured him and bled him, so that he healed slowly and imperfectly. When he had finally rid himself of the enchanted shackles, he had been able to tap into his reserve of magic, but after healing himself enough to fight, and fighting, and then healing Stark and carrying him for miles, he felt himself growing weak. There was more magic to be had here, magic close enough to his own _seidr_ that it would clear his mind and build his strength so that he could refine and carry out the plan he had formed during his long months of torment. 

Lying flat on the floor, he put his face and palms against the stone and drew strands of power from the depths of the earth, through the stone and into his flesh.

When he had drawn in as much as he could gather, he lay still for a while, coming back to himself. Then he stood and closed his eyes. This would do; he could go on like this.

He opened his mind and thought of The Other who had once threatened and controlled him. He called across the stars to the hive-mind of the Chitauri, to the eternal twilight of that rocky planetoid where Thanos sat, just out of sight, where The Other had expressed his will to Loki and the Chitauri, puppet master to his puppets. But Loki was no more a pawn in Thanos’ game. The Avengers had beaten the Chitauri once. The Other now had cause for fear.

Kneeling, Loki closed his eyes and put both hands flat on the floor of the cave, where he could detect a trace of the residual energy left by the long inhabitation of the Chitauri. He focused on it, and with a sickening drop he was suddenly back in the center of Thanos’ dismal realm, all rock and thin air, a place where even the stars hardly dared to shine.

“You,” The Other snarled. “How do you dare to face the Great One in his very stronghold, you who failed him, you who....”

“Oh, spare me,” Loki said viciously. As a sort of joke he had decked himself out in the horned helmet and the robe he no longer had a right to, and he carried the staff with the glowing blue orb, now all air and illusion. “What did you expect from your automaton army? But I have not come to discuss your defeat at the hands of the mortals. You and I have other business to transact.”

“Do we?” asked The Other with his unpleasant voice. “What business? You have led Stark to us. We have stolen his servant. What need have we of you? Begone, before I come find you and kill you, too. 

Loki had been right. It was the suit they were after, and Jarvis above all. But what did Thanos want with a suit, with a servant? He had the whole Chitauri army, capable of building him a metal carapace, a ship, or anything else he wanted. Unless what he wanted required imagination.

“You tried to kill me, and you failed,” Loki laughed, as he tried to ignore the pain from wounds all over his body. “And when next you come to Midgard—”

But he could see that The Other’s attention was flagging. His mouth was smug, his gestures impatient. “Midgard! Never will my Lord or I set foot on that pitiful rock again. We are off to conquer realms, not tiny worlds teeming with timorous mites.”

Loki’s plan required Thanos to come to Midgard. Thanos had humiliated him twice, and now was he to be left without revenge? Very consciously, he made himself relax just enough to show it, and let out a small breath, as if of relief. 

The Other squinted and cocked his head. The fish had smelled the bait. Now would he be hooked?

“Yes,” Loki said with a casual gesture, “yes, go on to your other worlds. There is nothing here for your Lord to covet, nothing at all.”

The Other leaned forward quickly, but Loki did not flinch away. “What are you hiding, Trickster?” he growled. “Tell me now and I promise you will not suffer long when I kill you.”

Loki laughed out loud. “If you kill me you will never know. And even if you knew, you would never find it without me.”

The Other scoffed. “You have nothing to offer. You lie, as always.”

“Oh, do I?” Loki drawled, knowing it was time to offer a little more substance. “Consider this: there is a prize yet to be discovered on Midgard,” he said carefully. “If you had used my captivity better you might have it already. But you neglected to ask me anything. Now you must bargain for it.”

The Other grimaced angrily. But he was listening. The tone of his voice rose to an unpleasant squeal, revealing his interest. “What prize?” he asked suspiciously. “If it is a worthy object, why have you not collected it yourself?”

“Oh, it is of no use to me,” Loki said, examining his fingernails with apparent concentration. “It would only be of use to one who desired to collect the jewels that bring a certain gauntlet to life. A gauntlet that can control all living things and wipe out the very atoms that compose them. Does that sound at all familiar?” He suddenly looked back at The Other and smiled. “But perhaps I am mistaken, and your ‘Great Lord’ has no use for such trifles.” Loki noted with disgust that The Other had begun salivating as he spoke. It was a tell he had noticed before when Thanos had held him captive for that long, long year after he fell from Bifrost.

“And why would you help one who has caused you such pain to obtain a prize?” Loki never quite knew when The Other was smiling, or if he even was capable of it, since his mouth was usually set in a half-open grimace. “Why would you help him find the Infinity Stones after all the time you have spent at his mercy?”

Loki laughed bitterly. “It was our defeat at the hands of the Midgardians that made you want to punish me, was it not?”

“ _Your_ defeat,” The Other said harshly. Strings of spittle flowed from his hideous jaws down to the stone he stood upon.

“Ah, yes, _my_ defeat,” Loki said sardonically. “Blame nothing on the invincible Chitauri army that was slapped down by a handful of misfits. Thousands of your soldiers killed, your Leviathans destroyed, by Thor and five Midgardians, one of them a _woman_.” This last word delivered a blow that made The Other hiss in involuntary anger.

“I grow tired of your games,” The Other said, impatient now, his blue-gray hands clenching and unclenching as he spoke. “I had hoped to leave you dead in the caverns of Earth, yet now you importune me once again. Next time we meet I will be sure to finish the job. But perhaps, for certain information, a short reprieve could be arranged? You spoke of a jewel. Where can it be found?”

Loki sneered openly at him, laughing deep in his throat. “You think I will just tell you, without getting something real in return? Do you take me for a fool? As you say, I have spent too much time in your hands.”

“A fool?” The Other echoed. “Perhaps. Taunting the servant of The Great One is certainly a foolish act. Quickly, now, tell me what it is and where to find it.”

Loki held out one hand and produced the image of a brilliant green gem in his hand. As it rotated an inch above his palm, it threw out blinding rays that cast an eerie silver-green light on both their faces.

Loki heard with satisfaction The Other taking an audible breath. “The Soul Gem,” The Other said with covetous reverence. “You cannot hope to control it with your puny powers. You must turn it over to my Master before it destroys you. Where is it now?”

Loki laughed. “It is somewhere safe, and don’t be so sure I can’t control it.”

It was The Other’s turn to laugh. “If you could control it, you would use it. You would not need His help.”

Loki pretended to consider. “On second thought, then, perhaps I don’t need your ‘Master’ at all.”

“What if he promised to spare you when he carries out his plans? What then?” The Other had moved infinitesimally closer to Loki’s avatar, and Loki noticed it with amusement. He had roped in his prey.

“For such a great prize, I would need more than mere safety as payment,” Loki said thoughtfully. “What about a planet to rule? A kingdom in the Nine Realms?”

“You have been given that chance and you have failed!” The Other snarled. “The Great One does not grant such favors more than once.”

“Perhaps he should consider making an exception,” Loki said, smiling as obnoxiously as possible, “since he will not obtain the gem otherwise.” Withdrawing his hand, he closed his fist over the bright illusion of the gem and extinguished it, leaving the wan face of the planetoid looking even more desolate than before. “And there is something else I want.”

“Oh, the insect makes demands! A planet and ‘something else.’ What, pray tell?”

“As a token of your goodwill,” Loki said easily, “and to compensate me for my treatment at your hands, I ask that you give me Stark’s metal suit.” Loki kept his face carefully blank, seeming neither too eager nor too disinterested.

The Other laughed his exaggerated toady’s laugh. “You wish to have the empty shell? I will not give it to you, though perhaps I will trade it. But I think you will find that the price is too high.”

“The suit is of no use to you. Your Chitauri already live in metal shells.”

“And what would you do with it? Return it to your human friends?”

“I was defeated at their hands,” Loki said, letting a note of anger creep into his voice. “You think I wish to help them? I merely wish to understand its workings so I can defeat them more easily. Stark will have no use for a damaged suit. His servant will build him another.”

“Oh, will he? Can he build his master a suit when he is even now serving the Master of All, the Consort of Death?”

“Was the servant in the suit?” Loki let his face relax into false confusion, let his eyes go vague. “I thought he merely communicated with it. Surely such a tool cannot be taken prisoner.”

“And yet he has been,” The Other gloated wetly, drooling once more. “He lies in our interweb, protected by our walls, and soon he will be one of us.”

“And, if that is so, soon he will lose all his value to you,” Loki said, smiling, “since all Chitauri think nothing except what you tell them to think.” He paced slowly, regally, forcing The Other to follow with his eyes. “Granted, you will still have his knowledge of the Midgardians’ fortress, of their strengths and weaknesses, but that knowledge has limited value. They are adaptable. They fight intuitively, in the moment, and that makes them more difficult to defeat than they should be.” Loki was not telling The Other anything he didn’t already know. He was speaking out of experience, using his very real bitterness to give his words verisimilitude. “Perhaps you need someone like me to spy on the mortals and find out what you need to know.”

The Other brushed his words away with an impatient hand. “Our armies are invincible. They have a _real_ leader now.” Loki smiled and raised an eyebrow, shrugging off the calculated insult. The fact that The Other did not wish to enlist him as a spy was actually quite disturbing. “He has once again taken up the reins of power. He shall conquer the....”

The Other was trying to distract him. Loki had come close to some truth he had not been meant to understand. He had no desire to hear the servant sing his master’s praises. “Why did you wish to take the metal man’s servant captive?” he asked speculatively. “Could it be that that your master requires a metal suit?” He watched as The Other’s jaws worked convulsively for a moment. “And what does the almighty Consort of Death need with a suit?” he continued insolently. “With all his powers, what possible use could a metal covering be to him? And if he needed one, why could the Chitauri not build it for him?" 

The Other was looking at him strangely, saliva running down his chin. Loki saw that he had hit a nerve, and he prepared to push a little harder. He thought of Thanos on the asteroid, sitting for many eons on his throne in the void surrounded by his minions, when suddenly he had it. He dared not laugh or move or breathe for fear of revealing the great truth that suddenly overwhelmed him—the key to Thanos’s need for Jarvis. The vague plan he had constructed before began to solidify in his mind.

“Very well,” Loki said, shrugging as if the subject had ceased to interest him, “if you refuse me the suit, perhaps you will grant me one other, quite trivial, thing.”

“You ask yet another boon? Insolent one!”

Loki let his very real anger roughen his voice as he spoke the words. “I want those known as the Avengers, the ones who defeated your army, I want them dead. All of them. My brother, too.”

The Other had grown very still. Even his drooling had stopped. “A realm to rule and the Avengers dead, for the Soul Gem,” he said slowly. “I will speak with my Master. Where can he find you?”

“Since I don’t intend to fall into your hands again, you will wait until I find you,” Loki said coolly, “when the time is right for taking the gem. And now, I believe our business is concluded—for the moment.”

“If you truly wish to purchase the empty suit,” The Other said slyly, “that can be arranged.”

Recognizing a heavy-handed trick, Loki braced himself. To avoid suspicion, he was willing to let The Other have his little joke. “Very well. What is the price?”

“The price is...your head!”

Loki snapped back into his body as The Other lunged at his projection. So. He had alerted Thanos that he was still alive and had given his enemy a good reason not to kill him, at least for the moment—the fake Soul Gem. He had gained much knowledge and given up little. He knew that Jarvis was in the hands of Thanos. And Loki was willing to bet that the first order of business would be building a metal suit, and he thought he knew why.

As soon as he was sure that The Other could no longer hear him, Loki sat back on the cold, hard floor and laughed his fill. If he could lure Thanos to Midgard with a promise of the Soul Gem, the Avengers could fight the Chitauri while he dispatched Thanos. He needed to find a weapon that could kill Thanos—ordinarily not a simple task—but, luckily, he knew exactly where to find one, because Thanos had dropped it in his lap. If he could somehow communicate with Jarvis, and if he could convince the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. to help him, perhaps he could prevail. He had one more thing to do here, and then it would be time for him to go to New York and tell Thor and the others his plan.

***

Upon leaving the cave, Loki returned to Dione’s spring where he had hidden it all those years ago. He went to it unerringly through the pitch-dark forest.

As he walked he felt Dione’s presence fluttering around him. She was a wisp of a thing, starved by lack of worship, compared to the days when she was fat and well fed with sacrifice. The Other had lent her the power to imprison Loki in the oak. He had probably promised it to her permanently and then removed it as soon as the job was done. Now she was in a panic, like a bird whose nest was being stalked by a hungry wolf. She was a vindictive little thing, remembering for all these centuries the wrong Loki had done her. She would have pecked his eyes out if she could. Loki wished he could crush the life out of her in one hand and feel her die, but she was all spirit, an immortal tied to the soil and water of this place.

Thanos had called on Dione because he had known her from eons before, when the Titans ruled the Nine Realms. Her substance was one with the Titans’, and what little magic she still possessed was of the same kind that had given them their power, and so could be used to kill them. Loki hoped there would be something left in her depleted store.

He reached Dione’s spring and drank deeply from it, dipping up the water with cupped hands as it flashed silver in the dark, absorbing as much of her ancient magic as possible before plugging the source up with silt and rocks, burying it deep underground where no one would ever find it again.

The ancient magic felt strange, playing through his thoughts, streaming through his body. There was an unfamiliar texture to it, a taste of the Old Gods, reaching back past the Titans to Midgard’s shadowy primordial gods. This was the magic that had formed their world, created humankind. Loki let it fill him as he judged and weighed its considerable potency. It did not exactly mesh with his own power, but he did not expect it to. It was a store of strength awaiting his need. This was the only power in existence that could destroy Thanos. He just hoped there was enough of it. He created a reserve within himself and confined the power there.

Dione’s strangled cry reached him from the depths where he had buried her sacred waters. He looked upon his work with satisfaction, then turned and walked away, intending never to return.


	6. Family Reunion

A helicopter picked up Stark, Banner, and Rogers, and brought them to a U.S. military base on one of the islands, where they were put on a transport for home. But now the cat was well and truly out of the bag, and Nick Fury knew that Loki and the Chitauri had surfaced on His Planet and that no one had told him anything about it. Consequences would ensue.

Tony seemed groggy and out of it at first, but after he had slept a while, he awoke acting more like himself. He asked Cap and Bruce a million questions and talked over the answers. He demanded a phone and called Pepper, who had gone to the Stanford Robotics Conference in his stead, and then spent an hour talking to Hawkeye about strategy for finding out where the Chitauri had gone. After that, he asked what had happened to him in the cave, and why he had such a headache. Banner described how he and Loki had found him, and how Loki had cured what had seemed like a fatal head wound. At that point Stark did something very uncharacteristic: he sat quietly for an hour and thought, and he never even asked for a drink.

***

Thor stood uncomfortably in the windowed room on the top floor of Stark Tower, watching Natasha and Clint work at a pair of terminals, facing each other across a table. As far as he understood it, Jarvis had been removed from the computer through Tony’s suit by the Chitauri, or whoever was controlling them. The way Clint had explained it, some of Jarvis was “hardwired” into the system, so it couldn’t be removed, and some of his “subroutines” were still present, but the Jarvis they spoke to and worked with every day was gone, imprisoned in an alien computer network.

Thor had not the slightest idea what any of this meant, beyond the fact that Jarvis was gone, his immaterial self having been abducted somehow. He had been even more confused when Clint had declared in anger that someone had “reached right through the firewall.” Thor had not been aware of any wall of fire in or around the computer. He had the uneasy feeling that it was another metaphor that he did not understand, but he decided not to ask, since he was almost sure he also would not understand the explanation.

Wandering over to the massive windows, Thor stared out into the darkness outside, where the city was spread out before him like an array of jewels, but the sky appeared blank, devoid of stars. He missed the night sky of Asgard, the glow of the nebulae and the rainbow bridge, the stars in all their splendor. The desert sky, as seen from the roof of Jane’s home, was closer to what he loved and was accustomed to: the swath of Yggdrasil—the Milky Way, as Jane named it—draped across the sky like a bejeweled velvet curtain, the sweep of stars from horizon to zenith, surrounding him like a glorious bowl of cold fire.

The thought of the desert sky took his mind back to Jane, lovely Jane, and the bittersweet day of their last parting. After their talk about Loki, and then his premonition of Loki in trouble, they had opened their hearts. Jane had spoken more of her feelings for Thor, her failing hopes for a life with him. Thor, in turn, had spoken of his desire for a life of peace, how he had given up the throne of Asgard, and an arranged marriage with Sif or another Aesir woman, in the hope of finding something better—a life with someone he could love and esteem with all his heart. And when he had found Jane, he had known he wanted to be with her forever, no matter if “forever” meant a century or a day.

They had made promises to each other then: Thor to work at detaching himself from thoughts of his brother—once and for all to leave his feelings for Loki behind in the past—and Jane to help him, to remind him when he faltered that a life with her was his desire. They both promised love, fidelity, kindness. They had made love sweetly and said good-bye with these promises in their hearts. Thor still felt a sense of awe when he thought of it. Jane didn’t like it when he said he did not deserve her, but, after all his missteps, her forgiveness felt like an unmerited second chance.

Thor walked back from the windows to the circle of light around his friends, glancing over their shoulders to see, without much hope, if anything on their screens made sense to him. It didn’t. He felt restless, without purpose. Tony, Bruce and Cap were still flying home from Greece, and would be for the next few hours. Perhaps he should go downstairs to the bedroom he had been assigned and call Jane.

Glancing once more towards the windows he froze. A dark figure lurked in the shadows where he had just been looking out at the sky.

There he was, as beautiful as ever, lithe and dangerous as a snake, his shrewd eyes glittering in the semi-darkness. His face looked grim and drawn, and his hair had grown well below his shoulders.

“Hello, Thor,” Loki said. “Happily for you, I am not an enemy. It was not difficult to penetrate your defenses.”

Silently, Clint and Natasha left their terminals and circled around to flank Thor.

“Loki,” Thor rasped, and in his own voice he heard everything he was trying to leave behind: love and desire, anger and disappointment. All the feelings still there, flooding back painfully into his chest. 

In a few strides Thor was on him, seizing Loki by the throat and dragging him into the light. “What have you done?” Thor asked furiously. “Where are our friends?”

Loki grinned. “Why, brother,” he said in a strangled voice, “I didn’t think you would greet me with a kiss. This is so unexpected.”

“Uh, Thor?” Hawkeye said tentatively. “They’re over the Atlantic. I just talked to Cap. When Loki left them in Greece and said he’d meet them here, I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to ring the bell downstairs.”

Holding Loki so close to him, Thor could feel his heat and the familiar shape of his body. He huffed and shoved Loki away. “Why did you not stay with them?” he asked suspiciously.

Loki choked, unable to answer for a moment. Then, deliberately, he touched his clothing as if to straighten it and brushed imaginary dust from his armored shoulders. “They’re taking an airplane. You expected me to fly coach?” he asked innocently.

“Coaches do not fly,” Thor said stubbornly, realizing a moment later that he must have misunderstood another mortal expression, because Natasha and Clint were studiously looking away, and Loki was smirking obnoxiously. Thor had lived among Midgardians longer than Loki. Why did Loki always pick up these expressions faster than he did?

“I had some things to take care of,” Loki said casually, stepping around Thor to take stock of the room. He started pacing, forcing Thor to turn in place just to track him. 

“What things? Contacting your Chitauri conspirators?” Although he knew it seemed unreasonable, Thor could not let go of his anger. He knew Loki must have done something. He seemed to be helping the Avengers, but it was not possible. Every time Thor had believed in his brother, he had been disappointed. Despite appearances, this time would be no different.

Loki laughed softly, but Thor could feel his brother’s anger rising. “They tortured me for months. I called out to you. You heard me, yet you did not come.” He stopped his aimless steps, looking Thor straight in the eyes. “Why did you not come, brother?”

Thor looked away, shaken and nervous, trying to restore his calm of the moment before. “Dr. Banner helped you to escape. Why did you want me?”

“I called to you, not the Monster,” Loki said blandly.

For once, Thor thought he saw the deception behind Loki’s eyes. He understood, and understanding gave his disappointment and anger the fuel they sought. He bristled. “You knew they wanted me and you set the trap anyway? How can you stand there and ask me why I would not come? I would never do such a thing to you.” 

“So righteous! And yet somehow it is never you who is being tortured,” Loki said, smiling spitefully, while resuming his wandering steps. “What choice did I have? Call for your help or die at their hands? Once you had freed me we could have fought our way out together, as the Monster and I did.”

Thor watched Loki as he paced, never taking his eyes away. “How did they know about Jarvis?”

Loki shrugged, still smiling. “Perhaps they detected his transmissions during the Battle of New York.”

“Are you sure you didn’t tell them?” Thor snarled. “If you were tortured as badly as you say, wouldn’t you tell them whatever they wanted to know?”

Loki’s smile faded abruptly and he had gone even paler than usual. He stood stiff and still, his eyes burning cold with anger. “They asked me nothing.”

Thor grasped at this contradiction. He would prove Loki’s guilt, his perfidy, and then everything would be all right. He could go back to loving Jane, discarding Loki. He scoffed. “They tortured you for months but asked you nothing? Do you think me a fool, brother?”

Loki smiled coldly, meanly, his eyes frozen with rage. “I have often said so,” he drawled. “Perhaps you finally believe me.”

With a brusque movement Thor took him violently by the arm, and, strangely, Loki flinched, stopping just short of crying out.

“I must speak to Loki alone,” Thor said to the others, dragging Loki into the small lounge behind the bar and slamming the door behind them.

Twisting, Loki broke free of his grasp and took a few awkward steps back. He did not wait for Thor to speak. “You know nothing,” he spat, “nothing of what has happened to me, of what I am.”

“Believe me, I know what you are,” Thor said in a low growl. “You were once my brother and most trusted friend, and now you are the curse of my life. How many times must I answer for your foul deeds, Loki?”

Nearly choking with anger, Loki scoffed, his hands at his sides balled into fists. “You, answer for me? Who asked you to, brother? I did not. If I have done wrong, I have also paid. A year in Odin’s prison, many months on Midgard as a mortal, months of torture—years!—not to mention a thousand years—a lifetime!—my childhood as a prisoner of war in Asgard.”

“You were not a prisoner! You were my brother!” Thor was roaring, so beside himself with fury that tears sprang to his eyes. His fist gripped Mjolnir’s handle so hard she hummed.

Loki chuckled to see him so overwhelmingly angry, but there was no humor in his eyes, which had had grown dark and malevolent. “How many times did you give me up for punishment?” he asked, shifting on the balls of his feet as he often did when he spoke passionately.

“Never!” Thor cried. Mjolnir hummed louder.

Loki scoffed. “What about Brokk? Who dragged me back to take that abuse? And how many times did you tell Odin about some harmless prank—”

“Harmless?” Thor was indignant. “Loki, you take lives without a thought. How is that—”

“Yes, harmless,” Loki insisted. “I’m not talking about the Battle of New York. We were children, Thor. We played tricks, you as well as I. And I always took the blame.”

Thor gestured vehemently. “It was always your idea!”

“Ah,” Loki laughed softly. “Lack of imagination as an unimpeachable defense. I shall have to remember that one.”

“And then there was the Battle of New York,” Thor said triumphantly, “since you brought it up. Was that harmless?" 

“No,” Loki said seriously. “No. But many more would have died had I not acted as I did.” Thor was struck dumb for a second. At the moment Loki told this monstrous lie, he apparently believed it with all his being.

“What does that mean? You _liar!_ You allowed the Chitauri to come through the wormhole and kill hundreds of innocents. I tried—I begged you to work with me to fix it, to stop them.” White sparks were winding around Thor’s arm from Mjolnir’s handle in his fist up around his shoulder. “What was your answer? You stabbed me!”

Loki scoffed. “With a knife that barely pricked your skin!” His fists were clenched, his eyes glinting with fury. “I could not stop it. I could not work against them.”

“That’s your excuse?” Thor cried. “That the knife did not harm me? That you ‘could not’ work against them?”

“I do not make excuses!” Loki screamed, opening his fists and holding them out towards Thor. Green vapor rose from his hands, forming into balls of energy in his open palms. They stood staring furiously at each other, on the edge of open battle. “What’s your excuse for handing me over for torture to Nick Fury?” 

“It was an interrogation, not torture,” Thor yelled hoarsely. “You are a criminal. You attacked his world. He had the right to ask you questions.”

“An interrogation, is that what you call it? While I was chained and muzzled, he thrashed me bloody for an hour! And you and your friends were out celebrating your victory.” Loki shook his head and gestured at Thor’s hammer. “After some of the things you’ve done to me, I’m surprised Mjolnir allows you to touch her.” Huffing out an exasperated breath, Loki shook the magic out of his hands and started again to pace back and forth.

Thor had calmed suddenly when Loki turned away, and now he stood rock-still, thinking, watching Loki pass to and fro before him. “I did not know Fury did that. He lied to me. He said he would have you write your confession.” He met Loki’s eyes suspiciously. “Unless you are lying to me now.”

Loki scoffed. “Write it? And you believed that feeble lie?” His wrath had not abated—in fact it seemed to be further provoked by Thor’s calm. “Think about this, Thor,” he said, taking a step closer and cocking his head to one side, “what would happen to you if someone took away your strength, your strong right hand with Mjolnir in it? Who would you be then?”

“I would be myself,” Thor said, confused. “What are you asking me?”

“No, Thor,” Loki said urgently, “you would not be yourself. You would break. You would shatter into a million pieces and never find yourself again.” He took a few steps back. “That is what has been have done to me. Over and over. My strength, my voice, my weapon—gone. That is what you all have done to me.” Waving a hand, he unclothed himself.

Thor stared in shock. Did Loki think to seduce him? Did he think Thor could be so easily distracted? “This is a shameful trick!” he began. “You think to seduce me, but I am promised to Jane. What you and I had in the past means nothing now. You merely use it to manipulate me to do your....” The words died on his lips as the reality of what he was seeing finally reached his brain.

Loki’s skin was scored with scars, dozens of them everywhere. Jagged cuts and smooth ones, burns, lash marks, deep bruises from blows laid down so hard they had broken and marred the skin. Many of the wounds were healed, or partially so, but the scars ranged from blood red to shiny white, and had obviously accumulated over a long period of time. One day they would fade, but now they told a tale of systematic cruelty Thor cringed to think of. It hurt to see those scars—physically hurt. His gut clenched; his throat was suddenly too dry for words.

Those marks on Loki’s throat—bands of welts that went all the way around. He must have been using a glamour to conceal the places where they rose above his collar. No wonder he had choked when Thor had gripped him there! And Loki’s arm, lined with livid marks, row after row of recent cuts running from shoulder to palm. No wonder his brother had flinched. Even in Asgard, with the help of a Healer, these wounds would take many days to fade. Thor was amazed that Loki had been able to close them as well as he had.

Thor had grabbed Loki’s arm in anger. Now he lifted it gently and ran his thumb over the taut skin. This was no illusion. Thor’s anger had burned like fire but now it drained from him like water. Without thinking, he pressed Loki’s wrist to his lips, then to his cheek. Loki regarded him coolly. Their eyes locked.

“I am sorry, Loki,” Thor murmured, his voice breaking. “I did not know.” 

Loki’s gaze softened as his arm relaxed in Thor’s grasp. Loki was looking at him with hope, as he had looked up at Odin that day, a second before falling from Yggdrasil into the void.

Anger and remorse warred in Thor’s brain, and he found himself unable to answer that look in Loki’s eyes. Years before, hadn’t it all been simpler? Two of them, together, always together, racing through the forest or the plains, laughing or feasting together. The day Thor had defied his father and turned the Bifrost towards Jotunheim—the day that Loki had discovered his true parentage—nothing had been simple from that day onward.

And since that day, Thor had never again been able to trust his brother. The marks on Loki’s body were real, but wasn’t it all too convenient that the Chitauri had used him as bait to trap Stark? Loki was entirely capable of having himself tortured to give plausibility to a plan. Wasn’t this just another manipulation?

“I am sorry, Loki,” Thor said again. “I’m truly sorry, but I can’t believe you. You could have let yourself be tortured so that I would think you were on our side. You worked with the Chitauri once before and many people died because of it. I cannot wager my friends’ lives against your word. You must understand—I must wait until I have some real some proof that what you say is true.”

Hope drained from Loki’s face as he pulled his arm slowly out of Thor’s grasp and let it drop back to his side. He was looking at Thor through hooded eyes—head tilted back, nostrils flared. Thor suddenly remembered that this was the look Loki wore to show his contempt when he faced an enemy with defiance. Was he now forever to be Loki’s enemy?

“The reason you are always sorry, Thor,” Loki said venomously, “is that you are always too late.” Clothing himself with a gesture, he went out into the main room. Thor followed. Clint was standing there waiting for them.

“Thor?” Clint said tentatively. “Bruce said that Loki saved Tony’s life. They want to talk to him. Don’t drive him away before they get here.”

Without glancing again at Loki, Thor stalked back to the windows and looked out on the city, but found no comfort there. The cold city lights against the window mocked him with false reflections that kept him from seeing the stars. Years before, hadn’t it all been clearer, when just the sight of Yggdrasil’s glory could reduce all his problems to trivia? But those had been a boy’s problems. Leaving Asgard on that long-ago day had thrown Thor into a world where every decision, every battle, had life and death consequences for thousands, for millions, for entire worlds.

He heard Clint talking to Loki, asking him to stay, and Loki saying he would come back later, when Stark had arrived, that he would tell them what he could about the Chitauri, though he had always refused to before. Thor had no idea whether Loki would return or not, whether he would tell them anything worth knowing, or whether he would stay in the room, invisible, and spy on them. Thor’s certainty was crumbling. He no longer knew what was true and what was a lie. The memory of Loki’s wounds still made him cringe, but at the same time he had to restrain himself from hurling Mjolnir to knock his brother down, to chain Loki up and force the truth from him.

If Loki even knew what truth was anymore.

Thor’s brain went numb from pain and anger, from beating uselessly against the same unanswerable questions like a bird flailing against a windowpane. He kept staring out at the city until the room was quiet. When he turned, Loki was gone, and Clint was standing there staring at him, looking worried, while Natasha still worked at her terminal. Embarrassed, Thor nodded at Clint to indicate he was all right, and then went downstairs to his room to call Jane.

***

The journey had taken its toll on Stark, even though he had slept almost all the way. He staggered in, supported by Banner and Cap, since he refused to allow Cap to carry him, which would have been simpler for everybody.

Stark called for a whiskey, and got one through pure persistence, though no one wanted to bring it to him, and Cap actively tried to dissuade him. Natasha finally sloshed some amber liquid into a glass and stuck it in his hand, saying, “Go ahead and kill yourself if you want to, just as long as you shut up.”

When they were settled, Cap told the full story, with Banner filling in his parts. Stark sat and drank, looking moodily into his glass. He felt shaky and sick, and even he didn’t know why he didn’t just quit drinking and go to bed. But when his glass was empty he stood unsteadily and poured himself another, spilling almost as much on the counter. He was determined to stay until the group broke up, telling himself that he needed to supervise, but not admitting that he was afraid to be alone in the quiet and the dark for fear he would think about what had happened to him, to Jarvis.

Cap was bringing his part of the story to a close. “When I saw Bruce walking with Loki on the road I wasn’t sure what had happened,” he said, “especially when I saw that Loki was carrying Tony over his shoulder.” Stark scowled to be reminded of this indignity. “Tony had been gone for five hours at that point. I was ready to call S.H.I.E.L.D., but I thought I’d take one more look when it was light.”

“There was no reason to call S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Stark mumbled.

“Loki seemed to be cooperating with us,” Banner added. “He’s the one who pointed out that Jarvis had been stolen.”

“Because he was working with them,” Romanov said impatiently. “How else would he know?”

“I don’t think so,” Banner explained placidly. “Loki was really badly hurt, and he fought the Chitauri with me.”

“How much of it do you actually remember?” Romanov asked sharply.

“Enough.” Her tone stung him, and her assumption that he became a brute beast when he changed, incapable of thought. “He was lying there chained, covered in blood. There were wounds all over his body.”

“It was an illusion.” Natasha spoke flatly, denying his words.

“But I touched him,” Banner insisted, trying to breathe slowly, to lower his heart rate. “I checked the pulse in his throat. And when I helped him escape the shackles, I had to lean my arm against his several times. He felt real. Can Loki maintain a tactile illusion like that?”

“It was not an illusion.” Thor spoke for the first time, and all eyes turned towards him. He seemed troubled, reluctant to speak. “I saw his wounds when he was here before. I touched them. But I don’t know why he was there with the Chitauri. He said that they tortured him until he set a trap for us.” 

“Yeah,” said Banner, “he told me that, too. But I didn’t think he meant....”

“So, Loki let himself be tortured so he could set a trap for you,” Romanov began, “and set the stage to show you a false fight where he made you believe he was fighting the Chitauri. And he said he’d be back to tell us more. Where is he?”

Clint shrugged. “I told him he could use that room where we had him before when he was human. He said he’d stay, but he isn’t in there now.”

Stark found himself nodding off and realized he’d better adjourn this meeting before he fell fast asleep in the middle of a sentence and dropped his glass on the rug. “Let’s continue this tomorrow,” he said suddenly.

Steve helped him stand and stagger to the bedroom door, through Stark wasn’t very gracious about it when Steve tried to prevent him from snagging an almost-full bottle of whiskey on the way.


	7. "Damn you, Loki!"

Restless, Loki abandoned the bedroom as soon as he got there, just after leaving Thor, slipping out the window in the shape of a crow and soaring down to become himself again on the street. Finding a dark corner, he disguised himself—dark suit, long coat—and watched the crowds surging along Park Avenue. When he had been exiled here, he had been a street person, unable to change his appearance at will. Now he chose elegant clothing, but nothing that would attract attention to himself. All the same, he noticed that a few people looked at him, looked him up and down, and seemed to like what they saw. He toyed with the idea of following one of them home for a sexual adventure, but his heart wasn’t in it. Being on these streets again made him feel nervous and vulnerable.

He walked down to Times Square, scene of many a robbery. Now being able to pick a pocket wouldn’t prove anything, but then it had kept his wits alive and had provided him with money to buy food. After his conversation with Thor, he felt like lashing out with a blast of _seidr_ to bring the buildings around him down in a pile of deadly rubble, to turn the lively movement and laughter around him to screams of fear. But it would be too easy to spread chaos here. These mortals were so easily broken that it seemed beneath him to reach out a finger to kill them. And, besides, he had very little energy to waste.

At random he chose a hotel and broke a few windows far above street level, and extinguished all its lights. An alarm rang incessantly as people streamed out of the place—hundreds of them pouring like ants from a flooded nest—right in the middle of their Friday night ritual celebrations of the end of the week of work. And when they were all out, he turned the lights back on and watched them puzzle over what had happened. It didn’t amuse him as much as he thought it would. He returned to Stark Tower even more restless and dissatisfied than before.

It was late, and everyone had apparently gone to bed. The room they had offered him was the one where he had lain in a coma while Thor told the story of his ordeal at Brokk’s hands. The idea that all the Avengers knew of his humiliation made him angry and vaguely uneasy. Of course, these mortals had also defeated him themselves, and they had known him as a mortal. They had seen him, muzzled and chained, dragged off to Asgard to stand trial. Later they had shackled him and kept him in their basement. He shrugged the thoughts away. Maybe, knowing what they did, they would underestimate him, think him easy to overcome. Perhaps he could use their contempt to his advantage.

It was clear that Thor, at least, was not going to believe him when he told them what he knew about the Chitauri and Thanos. The Captain, Romanov, and Hawkeye would not believe him, either. Stark and Banner were better disposed toward him because he had saved Stark’s life. But neither one of them actually trusted him. How could he expect any sort of concerted action, when most of them thought he was lying? He would try first to tell them what needed to be done, but if he couldn’t, he had another idea for how to make them do what needed to be done to save their world, in spite of themselves.

Over a year ago, in this very room, he had lain in a different bed, loaded with devices to keep damaged Midgardian bodies alive. Now it was furnished with an ordinary bed, a bookshelf, a desk with nothing on it, and a dresser. There was a bathroom stocked with soap and shampoo and towels—all things he had sought when he had been mortal. What a bother it had been to have a mortal body! On a whim, he uncapped and smelled all the soaps and lotions. In the dresser he found sleeping suits, and out of boredom he put one on and found it loose and comfortable. There was a bookshelf by the desk, stocked with volumes on everything from poetry to metaphysics. He pulled out one on quantum field theory and read for an hour or two, with pleasure.

He slept briefly, but his sleep was full of dreams about wrinkled grey faces and pain and blows, the scent of his own burning flesh, and things that could never be made right again. When he awoke his wounds hurt and he had to spend some time reestablishing his glamour.

Later he sat on the bed and looked out the enormous window, watching as the eastern sky over Brooklyn went from velvet black to pale gray and yellow predawn light. Brooklyn. He had never been there because of Odin’s spell, though he had tried in a hundred ways. Now he had not the least desire to go. But the memory made him restless again. Why was he waiting for the Avengers to wake up? Why didn’t just he go off by himself and search for traces of the Chitauri? He reminded himself of the answer. Because he had to stay close to them, to make sure they would be prepared when Thanos took the bait and came here looking for the Soul Gem.

A faint cry from outside the door caught his attention. Stark was the only other person who slept on this floor. Cautiously, Loki opened his door. Stark must be crying out in his sleep. Loki moved silently down the hall to investigate. Though the door was locked, he opened it easily and entered, going over to stand by the bed.

Stark was tossing, trembling, all his muscles tense as if straining against an invisible foe. His face was pale and lined with anger and misery. Loki stood and watched for a moment, head cocked to one side. It wasn’t the man’s physical presence that was impressive. His body was spare and wiry, and compared to Loki at full power he possessed barely any strength at all. But the spirit and the mind in that frame were indomitable. Loki still remembered with a slow smile how Stark had taunted him while they were waiting for the Chitauri army to come through the tesseract-created wormhole, bargaining for time, knowing he might miscalculate and die. Loki had lost patience and thrown him through the window into the street below, but all the same, Stark had won that day through the audacity of his dares and his boasting, his willingness to die for his cause—won by a hair, but it was still a victory. Loki had to admire that, much as it had surprised and humiliated him at the time. Now it was his turn to get something back. He no longer desired to injure Stark—after all, the man had kept him out of the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D.—but to toy with him—why not?

He moved a chair next to the bed and sat in it, slouching low to reduce the appearance of threat. Without bothering to reach for it, he used magic to snap on the bedside lamp and waited pensively, one hand at his lips, for Stark to wake up from his dream. A half-empty whiskey bottle sat on the floor by the bed. Stark had apparently been drinking straight from it. Loki picked it up and moved it to the bedside table. Depending on what happened later, he had no desire to overturn it on himself.

“What? Huh?” Stark was still deep in the illusion, trying hard to shake it off. He’d been drinking, and that, combined with the injuries he’d suffered earlier, made him sluggish and slow of speech. Finally his eyes opened wide and he scrambled back against the headboard. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Loki shrugged. “You had a nightmare. I heard you crying out.

Stark ran a hand through his sleep-tousled hair. “I’m awake now,” he said brusquely. “You can go.”

Loki ignored him. “It must have been a bad one. What was it about?”

“Your friends, the Chitauri.” Stark bent forward, holding his head in both hands. “What did they do to me? I have a terrible headache.”

“Your skull was fractured,” Loki said easily. “You were bleeding from your ears.”

Stark’s eyes snapped to his face. “Then why am I conscious?”

“I found you dying. I healed you,” Loki said simply. “I’m surprised Dr. Banner didn’t tell you.”

“He did.” There was silence between them as Stark rubbed circles over his temples. Loki waited. “I think they threw me up against the wall,” Stark said finally. “When they shot me down, and Jarvis went dark, they forced me out of the suit, just pulled me out like shucking an oyster. And then they threw me against the wall.”

“Hence the nightmare,” Loki said. He could smell alcohol on Stark’s breath. Despite the head injury, Stark must have drunk a considerable amount.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Stark said irritably. “This has been great and all, but now I think it’s time for you to....”

Loki stood. “Very well. I could have helped with that headache,” he offered casually. “But it seems that you would rather suffer alone.

“Fine, help with the headache,” Stark snapped.

Loki hesitated theatrically, taking a step away as if to leave and then turning back, as Stark looked up at him desperately. “Only if you’re really sure,” he purred.

“Goddamn it, Loki!” Stark was rubbing at his eye sockets with both thumbs almost hard enough to cause damage.

“All right, then.” Loki took his time coming back to the bed. “Lie down flat and move your hands away.” Stark obeyed. Kneeling on the floor by the side of the bed, Loki took Stark’s head in both hands and pushed a stream of healing energy through them. “It’s not surprising you have a headache. You decided to drink yourself to sleep after a serious head injury.”

“Are you a doctor?” Despite his pain and need, Stark was defying him. Loki smiled.

“In a way. When I was a child in Asgard and showed magical talent, Frigga sent me to be trained by the healers. I soon surpassed them, of course.”

Stark had stopped listening. “Aaaah,” he moaned. “Oh, god. That’s better.”

Loki chuckled quietly. “It has been many years since I have had worshippers on Midgard.”

Opening his eyes, Stark glanced at him and scoffed softly. “Some god, wearing the pajamas from the guest room. You almost look mortal again.”

Loki had the urge to cuff him for that remark, but what he had planned was much more delicious. “But now I can do this,” Loki said, stroking from the top of Stark’s head to his shoulders, easing away pain and tension as he went. Stark closed his eyes again and relaxed into his touch. Loki’s left hand strayed slowly lower, down Stark’s chest and under the covers to his waist. From all appearances so far, Stark slept in the nude.

Loki leaned closer, breathing in Stark’s warm, male scent, with a liberal overtone of alcohol. His lips touched Stark’s, feather light, once and then again.

Stark’s eyes opened wide. “What are you doing?”

Loki laughed delightedly. “I think you know.”

“Oh, no, I don’t. I mean, I don’t do men.” Stark made a weak movement away. “And especially not you. I mean, you...you’re....” When Loki’s hands did not follow, Stark moved his head back into the comfort of Loki’s magic, and Loki’s lips touched his again, more firmly now.

“Kiss me,” Loki whispered hotly against his cheek. “I can feel how much you want to.”

A note of panic crept into Stark’s voice. “Listen, I don’t think this is....” Loki licked his neck and played the lip of his tongue lightly around the inside of Stark’s ear. Stark tilted his head back without quite being aware of it. Loki mouthed his face, his throat, traced the outline of Stark’s lips with the tip of his tongue. Stark moaned softly. “If you ever tell Pepper,” he breathed, “I’ll....”

“Do you think I want Thor to know?” The answer, of course, was “yes,” but Stark didn’t need to know that. Loki leaned in and took his mouth, pulling Stark’s slim body to him with both hands. Stark gasped, and then sighed and grabbed at Loki’s shoulders.

Loki kissed Stark with all the attention and intensity of which he was capable, using teeth and tongue, lips, and small sounds of pleasure to ensnare Stark’s will. From doubtful kisses, with tense mouth and passive tongue, Stark was growing ever more aroused, thrusting his tongue into Loki’s mouth, exploring it as aggressively as he was being explored. To think that this fragile creature—with a head like an eggshell—to display such passion—how he was fucking Loki’s mouth with his tongue! This mere mortal, this bantam rooster....

Sex with a Midgardian! It had been centuries since Loki had seduced an inhabitant of this world, and he remembered now what had so charmed him long ago. These mortals made love seriously—as if it meant something so profound!—desperately, as if in a terrible rush to forget their own brief lives, to grab pleasure now before youth and desire fled in a mad rush to the grave.

And now Stark was pushing Loki’s shirt down off his shoulders, forcing the loose pants down past his waist, and Loki, who could have magicked his clothing away in a tick, let him do it, enjoying the feel of Stark’s desperate hands on his back and chest, at his groin. Pulling back the covers and kicking off the remnants of his clothes, he levered himself up on the bed and lowered his body partly onto Stark’s, taking Stark’s genitals into one hand. But his assertive action made Stark’s kisses falter—he seemed to be having second thoughts again—did he fear being penetrated, which was exactly what Loki hoped and intended to do? Loki couldn’t let the momentum fade. Instead of continuing as he was, he slithered down toward the foot of the bed until he could take Stark’s cock into his mouth.

Stark cried out and arched his back as Loki swallowed around him, sucking him down. Stark’s organ was curiously denuded, the foreskin deliberately removed, and long ago. Loki had heard of this practice as the province of certain cults, but he had never encountered it this closely before. Why did these mortals do such things to themselves? What a barbarism, to cut a child’s penis before he could choose this fashion or reject it as superstition. He had half a mind to restore the missing skin with magic, but that would be a tricky project, and would probably not be painless, either.

As Loki worked, he could see flashes of Stark’s face, blown away, overwhelmed with sensation, and he reveled in the feeling of Stark’s fingers groping over his face and grabbing his hair. Stark was talking nonsense, saying his name, over and over, as if to remind himself who was doing this to him. And soon Loki felt emboldened to put his fingers where he wanted his cock to be.

Then Stark was coming, moaning as if he were possessed. While Stark was still pliable, his mouth slack and his eyes glassy, Loki moved forward, raising Stark’s knees as he went, ready to enter him, when a pounding erupted at the bedroom door.

“Tony, are you all right?” It was Hawkeye’s voice. The Avengers rose early. No surprise that they had heard Stark’s moans, just as Loki had heard his nightmare cries.

Stark froze. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just had a nightmare. It’s nothing.” Loki smirked at the half-lie, understandable under the circumstances, even for one of the upstanding Avengers.

“Can I come in? I need to ask you something.”

“What?” Stark looked at Loki with alarm and whispered, “Did you lock the door behind you?”

“Of course,” Loki mouthed in his ear, completely sure that he had not. He calculated for a split second whether the amusement of letting Hawkeye see them like this would be worth the trouble it would cause later, and then reached out with his mind to silently block the door. He wanted to finish this, not waste it on shocking Stark’s comrades.

“We can’t find Loki. He’s not in there, is he?”

“Why would he be in here?” Stark asked belligerently. “I’ve been asleep.”

And there it was, a reward almost as great as an orgasm, and more lasting. Stark had lied for him. Loki felt a momentary tenderness towards this mortal, as if for a protégé who was making swifter progress than expected. He slicked himself with an unguent conjured into his hand and began to push inside.

“Can I come in?” Hawkeye asked again, trying the door noisily.

“Can I come in?” Loki mocked in a whisper, opening his way with slowly mounting pressure.

Stark’s eyes grew wide with fear. “What if he gets in and sees us?” he hissed.

“He can’t,” Loki soothed him. “The door is blocked. I can keep him out.” He heard a hitch in Stark’s breath and slowed his advance, kissing Stark’s face and neck, and stroking his chest to calm him. In his long lifetime, Loki had raped, and he had used violence to get what he wanted. But the greatest pleasure of all was seduction.

“Not now,” Stark called hoarsely to Hawkeye. “I’m going to try to get a little more sleep. I have a splitting headache.” The first lie was now compounded by two more. “Give me another hour.”

Loki slid home and swiveled his hips, muffling Stark’s cry with his mouth. Stark grabbed his ass hard and dug in his nails. Apparently danger excited him too. Stark reached between them and grabbed his own cock as he shifted back and opened his legs to get more of Loki inside him.

“This isn’t your first time,” Loki whispered knowingly. “I thought you didn’t ‘do’ men.” He mouthed and bit Stark’s neck and shoulders, sucking at his collarbone hard enough to leave a mark.

“Not anymore,” Stark said breathily. “I don’t do anyone but Pepper. I mean, never again.”

“Are you telling me you don’t like this?” As Loki fucked him with smooth, deep, deliberate strokes, Stark was moving under him, pulling him in with his legs.

“What do _you_ think?” Stark gasped. “Now stop talking!” Pushing both hands up into Loki’s hair, he yanked his head down for a long, aggressive kiss.

When he came, Stark would have yelled if Loki hadn’t gagged him with one hand. Stark bit his fingers hard. _So that’s the way it is,_ Loki thought with amusement. Laughing, he held Stark’s arms down against the mattress and took his pleasure deliberately and at his ease. Stark watched Loki’s face, but he didn’t struggle.

They lay side by side, cooling down, no longer touching. Stark looked sated and yet increasingly angry as his mind started working again. “Damn you, Loki,” he said.

“Why? You got everything you wanted,” Loki said obnoxiously.

“You tricked me into it,” Stark said. “Did you give me the headache so you could cure it?”

“No, but that’s an intriguing idea. Why are you so upset? You wanted it. It was good.”

“I promised Pepper,” Stark said ruefully. “I don’t suppose that makes any sense to you.”

Loki smiled. “You must have promised her you wouldn’t be with other women.”

Stark sat up to face him, gesturing as he tried to make his point. “Yes. And if she finds out, she’ll.... But if I don’t tell her, I’ll....”

“There’s nothing to confess,” Loki said gleefully, sitting up to face him. “You haven’t been with a woman, have you? You’ve kept your promise.

Stark rubbed both hands over his face and sighed. “Next time—if there ever is a next time,” he said viciously, “I’m going to fuck you through the floor.”

Loki laughed. “I might even let you,” he said. “And it won’t violate your promise to Pepper, either.”

Grabbing the whiskey bottle off the bedside table, Stark hurled it at Loki’s head. Loki dodged it easily. It thumped hard into the corner with a dull ring and glugged out its contents on the rug. “Get the hell out of here,” Stark spat.

***

After Loki left, his laughter still hanging in the air, Stark lay back and pulled the covers up to his chin. What the hell had he just done? After being good for years—two whole years!—he had blown it, and for what? For sex with Loki. Amazing sex, admittedly, but with _Loki_.

It wasn’t the gay thing. Pepper had known for years that he was bi. It had been mostly women, but once in a while she’d had to give “the talk” to a good-looking guy as she threw him out in the morning. But this was Loki.

She had been so patient with him. Tony had always loved picking up women—and the occasional guy—at conferences, at parties, on the street, wherever the urge took him. He loved bringing them home, and fucking them and never seeing them again. Except for the ones who stalked him afterwards, of course. That was creepy. But he had the money and pull to deal with it and keep them out of his life. And then he had started things with Pepper, and he’d promised, solemnly promised.... There had been slips. Of course there had. But this was more than a slip. This was Loki.

How the hell could he confess to Pepper what he had done? How could he expect her to forgive him? He knew he had to tell her, but maybe he should let some time go by first. Oh, man. She was going to _kill_ him.

He had let Loki fuck him. And it had been amazing. He was sore all over, in a good way—that good, post-incredible-sex way. He had pulled something in his neck watching Loki blow him. Just thinking about that blowjob made him start to get hard. But there was no way he could let this happen again.

Damn Loki anyway. He was beautiful. He always had been, but as a mortal he had just seemed like a pain in the ass. Well, that was ironic. How had Loki suddenly become someone who made him hot? Was Stark attracted to danger now, to power? Goddamn it. This wasn’t only Loki’s fault—it was his own. You couldn’t ask Loki not to take something that was served to him on a silver platter.

Tony pulled the covers over his head and squeezed his eyes tight shut. It was the Chitauri. Being thrown against the wall like that. Losing Jarvis. Post-traumatic whatever they called it. Yeah, it was real. He’d had it for months last time, after the Battle of New York. But it wasn’t much of an excuse.

***

Loki returned to his room without letting anyone see him and took a shower, one of his few pleasures when he had been human, and something that was all too rare on Asgard. He thought about what had happened with Stark and realized that he might just have alienated one of his greatest allies. He finally had to admit that the idea of rallying the Avengers to his cause, explaining his plan, arguing for action, leading the troops to war—blah, blah, blah—it bored him silly. He felt most comfortable creating chaos, and that could serve him just as well as advocacy here.

If he turned everyone against him, let them—encouraged them even—to think that he was breaking them apart, distracting them from some impending attack led by himself, then they would prepare themselves. All he had to do was drop some clues along the way. The most important thing would be to make sure they were not taken unawares.

At the very end, when Thanos had been lured here and everything was in place, he would tell them what was happening, and they would be forced to be ready whether they believed him or not. He had to appear to be helping them, but in a way that aroused suspicion, while he really was helping them. Just the sort of convoluted plan he enjoyed.

One of his first orders of business would be to rouse Stark from his boozy, inactive state to pull himself together and build a new suit, and Loki had a very good idea how to do it. He grinned at himself in the steamy mirror and prepared to create havoc.


	8. Change of Plans

A few minutes later, Loki came out of his own room fully dressed. 

Thor was there to face him. “Where were you?”

Loki gave him a blank look. “Why do you ask?” It was starting. He would enjoy this plan. 

Hawkeye walked up slowly and stood next to Thor. “We couldn’t find you.”

Loki shrugged. “I wasn’t aware I needed to let you know of my whereabouts. Ah, good. There’s coffee.” He disappeared and appeared again behind them at the bar. He poured a cup and wandered over to find a place to sit on the deep leather couches in the center of this room.

Natasha sat on the other one, arms folded, staring at him in the manner of a scientist examining a squirming insect on a pin.

“Good morning, Agent Romanov,” Loki said, nodding in her direction. She ignored his greeting.

Cap entered the room, saw Loki, and went directly to stand with Thor and Hawkeye.

Loki laughed as they all continued to stare at him. “All right. What am I supposed to have done?" 

“Have you communicated with anyone this morning?” Cap asked briskly.

“I wished Agent Romanov a good morning,” Loki said seriously.

“Cut the games,” Cap said.

Loki put his cup down on the table and rose from the couch. “I could say the same to you. I was imprisoned by the Chitauri—who tortured me unmercifully for months, by the way—I fought next to your Hulk and retrieved Stark for you. And you’re accusing me of—what exactly?—working with the Chitauri? What sense does that make?”

“You admit that you lured us there—that you tried to lure Thor.” Cap and Thor both stood with their arms crossed high on their chests, and, although it furthered his new plan, it made Loki furious. He had originally thought by showing Thor the marks of torture on his body he could avoid their suspicion. He might have known they would all believe Thor’s absurd contention that he had allowed himself to be tortured. Clearly, none of them ever had been.

“What was I supposed to do?” Loki asked, eyes flashing. “They were killing me. I knew I should have done this on my own. You’re wasting time suspecting me when you could be working on finding Jarvis.”

“About that....” Cap began.

Down the hall, the door to Stark’s room banged open and he stumbled into the room, mussed and unkempt, with wet hair, clearly fresh out of the shower. He was barefoot and wore old jeans and a worn and faded t-shirt.

“Well,” he said, looking between them, “what’s going on here?”

“They’re asking me where I was this morning,” Loki said indignantly. “They think I was giving your secrets—what those are I have no idea—to the Chitauri.”

With shaking hands Stark poured himself some coffee. Loki could see he was buying himself time to think. Holding his cup with both hands, he walked over and stood by Loki. “If you must know, he was with me. I had a terrible headache this morning. Loki cured it for me.”

No one was more surprised than Loki to hear those words. Another half-lie on his behalf. Why? His eyes met Stark’s and he saw something new there: apprehension, yes, but also some sort of recognition, and perhaps acceptance. That was one thing about spreading chaos—he usually ended up surprising himself as well.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that?” Hawkeye asked suspiciously.

“It was none of your business,” Stark said, sitting heavily on the couch. “Can we get back to the Chitauri now?”

“We’re waiting for Dr. Banner,” Cap said.

There was silence for a few minutes. Loki walked out into the hall by the elevators, thinking about what to do next. If he overplayed this it was possible that he was going to be asked to leave, and that accorded badly with his plans. Instead, he would tell the truth, answer all their questions, and that in itself would make them suspicious. 

He felt The Other summoning him and thought about ignoring it. This was not a particularly opportune time. But ignoring the summons could have worse consequences if Thanos decided to leave Midgard before Loki could fight him.

He let himself slip half from his body onto the rocky asteroid. “What?” he asked insolently.

The Other looked angry, but for once chose not to speak it. “My master is intrigued by your proposition. Your life, the Avengers dead, and a realm to rule for the Soul Gem.”

“What if I’m having second thoughts?” Loki asked languidly. “Maybe I should use the Soul Gem myself.” It was never a good idea to agree too quickly to a deal you wanted.

“Then he will destroy you!” The Other hissed.

Loki shrugged. “If he wants it that badly, then I agree. And the realm I choose to rule is Asgard.”

“Asgard must be destroyed,” The Other said, drooling.

Loki laughed. “Oh, it will be, under my rule.”

“Very well, then. When will you have the gem?” The Other looked eager, of course, since once Thanos had all the gems he would be invincible even to the silver magic Loki carried within him. 

Loki felt Thor come up behind him. He had to end this.

“Soon,” he said. “I will place it on Midgard and guide you to it. I have no desire to be in Thanos’ company when he acquires it.” Before hearing The Other’s answer, he wrenched his mind back to his body and turned to face Thor. “Well, brother?” Loki asked, wondering why Thor had followed him. Perhaps Thor had heard Loki speak a word or two. Sometimes in the transitional state Loki spoke in both realms without realizing it.

Thor was staring at him with a bright intensity that Loki remembered from long ago. “Who were you talking to?”

“Myself.” Loki shrugged. “I was thinking.” 

“Loki, I heard you—” 

“The conversation I was having a moment ago was much more interesting than this one,” Loki interrupted with irritation. He started to pass Thor on his way back into the other room, but Thor stepped into his path to stop him. 

“What did you do to him?” Thor asked in a low, quiet voice.

“To whom?” Loki put on his best game face. Surprisingly, Thor suspected that he had had sex with Stark. It was just as well for that bit of information to be revealed. So the best route was to ask Thor to conceal it.

“To Stark. Did you rape him? Control his mind? Force him to speak falsely for you?”

“I did nothing,” Loki said with a slowly blooming smile, “that you would not do. To me.” They stared at each other through a long moment.

“You lay with him, then. With Stark.” Thor’s voice was soft, barely intelligible.

Loki shrugged. “You have your mortal, I have mine.”

Thor’s mouth twisted into a sneer. Even the night before, his face had never looked so spiteful, so furious that Loki could imagine anything—any curse, any insult—spewing from those lips. He waited, smiling falsely, heart pounding, for the unforgivable words he knew would come.

“And how did you trick him?” Thor asked hoarsely. “How did you blind him to your true nature? How did you make it seem good to him to lie with a murderer, a monster?” The words lay there unadorned, echoing in their ears. _Murderer. Monster._

Thor was trembling with fury. Loki felt a new, unfamiliar calm that pushed him to answer. “Is it so inconceivable that a mortal would consent to lie with me?” he asked. “Am I truly such a monster, then? And if I am a monster, then why do you care who lies with me?”

“I will tell them all,” Thor growled. “They will know what you have done.”

“And what if Stark does not wish them to know? What if he does not wish his woman to know?” 

“Are you asking me to keep your secrets?”

“I am asking you to think about what chaos you will cause by telling. You, not I. Your heroes will split apart. Stark’s woman will leave him. Is this what you want? Or are you merely jealous? Are you trying to hurt me? Or Stark?”

Thor took him by the shoulders and shook him. “Damn you, Loki,” he said. “Why did you do it? Why can’t you let anyone alone?” He shoved Loki away and immediately looked as if he wished to grab him again.

“You think you know me, Thor,” Loki said, swaggering just a little, “but I know you better. You wish to lie with me yourself. Tell them, then. Set it all in motion. I will not stop you. You know my love of turmoil. I will stand behind you and laugh.”

Thor’s face looked strained and pale as he gazed into Loki’s eyes. Without warning he turned on his heel and went back to join the others.

As Loki walked back into the room he noticed that the light from the windows had dimmed. Dark clouds were gathering, and thunder grumbled, echoing through the streets below. He smiled. Thor never could keep a secret.

***

When Banner walked in, he sensed the tension in the room and almost turned around and walked right out.

Thor was standing by the windows, Mjolnir in his hand, as storm clouds roiled in the sky outside. Cap, Hawkeye, and Romanov stood nearby, looking as if they had just finished an unpleasant conversation. No one in the room looked at ease except Loki, who was sitting on the couch looking as if he owned the place. Stark sat at the bar with his back to everyone, hunched over a cup of coffee, looking as exhausted as Banner had ever seen him.

Banner walked up and stood at his elbow. “Tony, what’s going on here?” he asked softly.

Stark spared him a glance. “Believe me, you don’t want to know,” he said, and then proceeded to tell him anyway. “They’ve all decided Loki is working with the Chitauri before they even hear his side of it. And Loki and Thor were just arguing about something out in the hall, and now Thor is sulking.”

The others walked over and settled themselves on the other couches, or on the floor. Thor left the windows and stood at the edge of the group.

“Bruce, we’ve been waiting for you. Loki is going to tell us about the Chitauri,” Cap said with an over-controlled edge to his voice that made Banner’s pulse spike. Clearly everyone was upset about the conflict that had taken place before his arrival, and no one was happy about having to listen to Loki. Just as well he had been late. He turned a barstool to face Loki and sat on it, waiting with the others.

Loki stood and joined his hands together behind his back. “When I fell from Asgard, I had the misfortune to land in the realm of the Chitauri,” he began. “I was...damaged in the fall, and the Chitauri damaged me further.”

“They tortured you?” Cap asked.

“They are skilled at torture,” Loki said conversationally, “as I was reminded during my most recent sojourn among them.” There was complete silence in the room. “Seeing no other way out, I was forced to bargain with them.”

“And what did they want you to do?” Stark asked finally.

“Everything I did and more. To obtain the Tesseract. To use it to create a wormhole and lead the Chitauri army against Midgard.” There was a flash, and the windows shook as thunder boomed outside. Rain lashed the windows. “But I did not honor our bargain. They wanted me to win.”

“Are you trying to say that you lost on purpose?” Cap began angrily. “Because that’s just—”

“What do they want this time?” Stark interrupted.

“The Chitauri want nothing. It is their leader who wants.” Loki had turned toward the rain-darkened windows, speaking with his back to all of them as if the rain were more deserving of his attention than they were, or perhaps he just didn’t want them to see his face.

“Who is this leader?” Thor asked angrily. “I asked you before, and Odin asked you, but you wouldn’t....” He paused, getting control of himself.

“He has a name that is dangerous to say. But he is also known as The Consort of Death.” Loki was speaking faster now, as if he wanted to get it all said quickly. “He has existed for long ages, as long as the Nine Realms. It is said that he was one of the Titans who were vanquished by Zeus.”

“Zeus is real?” Stark muttered. “Him too? Holy shit.”

Loki ignored him. “His goal is to return everything to the void, to snuff out all life in the universe.” He turned suddenly, looking into each of their faces as if searching for something he hoped to find there. “If he conquers Midgard, he will have a base within the Nine Realms. There will be no way to stop him from laying it waste.”

Loki’s face looked pale and haunted in the artificial light. No one spoke during a long minute as thunder cracked and reverberated outside.

“Wait, I’m confused,” Stark said, breaking the spell. “Why did they capture you again this time? Revenge?”

“Perhaps,” Loki shrugged. “And so that I would call Thor there. Any one of you would do to lure the others. They wanted Jarvis.”

“Why?” Cap asked. “What do they need with Jarvis?”

Looking at the floor, Loki shook his head impatiently. “Jarvis knows you all. He knows your defenses, your habits, your strengths and weaknesses. He knows everything about you. And....” He paused, looking up again. “And he can build a suit, like the one Stark has, but invincible to the forces of Midgard.”

“Jarvis is a machine,” Hawkeye said impatiently, “a piece of hardware programmed with software. They stole his interface, but they never got into the server. How can they use him to do all that?”

Loki caught Stark’s eye and laughed. “Is that what you think? Jarvis is a machine? Stark knows better.”

“What are you talking about?” Cap asked angrily. “What is Jarvis, if he’s not a machine? Tony? What does he mean?”

Stark turned on the barstool to face them all. “Loki’s right,” he said reluctantly. “Jarvis is alive.” Everyone started talking at once, yelling questions, arguing—except for Loki, who stood in the center smiling mildly. He apparently loved letting cats out of bags. Banner wondered what he was getting out of all this. It was not a trivial question. Loki was causing chaos, which he obviously loved, but did he have another motive for helping them, or appearing to? Maybe his “help” was meant to be a hindrance.

Running a hand through his hair, Banner took a deep breath and turned away to think. He should have known it. Everyone should have. All this time, the way Jarvis anticipated Tony’s every desire, what else could it have meant? They had all been blind to it. Willfully blind. The implications here were startling and potentially fatal. But why hadn’t Tony made sure that they knew?

“Tony,” he said urgently, turning back towards his friend, “does Jarvis have emotions? Is he loyal to you?” Cap picked up on his question and shushed the others so Tony could hear it.

Stark shook his head. “Ask me an easy one. He’s supposed to give the appearance of emotion. There’s a complicated algorithm in his program to produce it. Sometimes he has strange reactions, and I wonder if the algorithm needs tweaking. Like lately he’s been asking me a lot of personal questions.” 

“About what?” Banner asked.

“Oh, you know,” Stark said, looking uncomfortable. “Stuff.”

“Your childhood?” Nat suggested cynically. “What you have for breakfast?”

“Okay!” Stark said loudly, capitulating. “My sex life, okay? What it feels like to have sex, am I in love with Pepper, stuff like that. Sometimes he asks questions about human nature, you know, because I coded that into him—thought it might be useful for him to want to learn about us. But this sex stuff has been kind of weird.” 

In the outer hallway the elevator bell dinged once, and the sound of a rolling suitcase on the parquet echoed in the room until the wheels hit the carpeting. “Oh, Jesus,” Stark muttered, “she’s early. That’s all I need.” Pepper was home.


	9. Launching Chaos

Pepper came into the room rolling her silver suitcase and looking exhausted. Her navy blue suit looked fresh and pressed, but her shoes were splattered with rain. Her eyes were red, her face so pale that her freckles stood out in contrast.

“Hello,” she said, smiling tiredly at them all as she entered the room, “sorry to interrupt. What’s with this rain? They said it was going to be sunny today. The conference ended last night, and I couldn’t stand one more of those cocktail party-dinner things, so I decided to take the redeye. We landed just before the storm hit.” She walked over and gave Tony a kiss. “You look awful,” she said appraisingly. “You should get more rest after what you’ve been through. I’ve got to get these shoes off and then I’m going to take a shower.”

“Uh, Pepper,” Tony started awkwardly, “you probably shouldn’t go in there. It’s an awful mess. Why don’t you use the big suite downstairs on 12?”

“I don’t care about the mess,” she said, “as long as there are clean towels.”

“There aren’t,” Tony said desperately.

“Of course there are.” Pepper shot him a look. She was starting to wonder what was up.

“Give me a minute, guys, okay?” Leaving his coffee on the bar, Tony followed her into the room and shut the door.

Banner looked at Loki, who was smirking outrageously while Thor glared at him and the storm continued to rage outside. He wondered uneasily what else he had missed by arriving late.

The others milled around uncomfortably. Thor glared at Loki while Loki smiled his secret smile. Cap came over to talk to Banner about the implications of this new information about Jarvis. Nat and Hawkeye were off by themselves at one end of the room, having an intense discussion that no one else could hear. Banner wondered what they were saying.

Suddenly, a screamed “What?” from inside Stark’s room stopped all conversation. The door banged open and Pepper exploded out of it in stocking feet, dragging her case, with Stark following close behind. She turned suddenly and he almost ran into her.

“Get me my shoes!” she ordered in a low, furious voice.

“Don’t leave,” Stark pleaded, as he walked backwards into the room. “Just let me talk to you for a minute. Let me explain.”

“How can you possibly explain?” she said. “There’s a bottle of whiskey spilled in the corner—the place smells like a brewery. And then I find the pajamas from the guestroom dumped on the floor with half the buttons torn off, lying in your bed. It’s pretty clear what happened.” Stark came back with the shoes, and Pepper grabbed them out of his hands and put them on, standing first on one foot and then the other as she spoke. “You’ve had someone in there, and I want to know who.”

“Come back in the room,” Stark coaxed. “Let’s talk about this in private. Come on, Pepper.”

“Do you deny you had someone in bed with you?” Pepper asked, refusing to budge and holding up a hand to keep Stark away from her. “You didn’t even clean up! You’re not even trying to hide it.”

“No, I don’t deny it. I just want to....”

“I don’t care what you want!” Pepper yelled. “I want to know who it was.”

Loki was looking between Pepper and Stark with an air of great anticipation. Thor had walked back over to the window and looked as if he might throw Mjolnir through it. An enormous flash announced a deafening peal of thunder.

“All right, Thor!” Stark yelled. “I fucked up, okay? Just don’t knock the building down.”

“Who was it?” Pepper was standing still, speaking quietly now, but the anger was still there, contained. Her hand trembled slightly as she brushed a strand of hair back from her cheek.

Stark dropped his gaze to the floor and then looked up, straight at Pepper, with a look of despair on his face. “Loki.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she said, looking as if she might hit him.

“It was Loki,” Stark said doggedly. “Damn it, Pepper, I....”

But Pepper was looking at Loki now, who was wearing a triumphant, taunting smile that could not have been more obnoxious. Taking a quick step forward, she grabbed a coffee cup off the bar and flung it at him.

It would have hit him, too, had Loki not held up a hand to stop it in midair, the coffee suspended out of it like a milky brown amoeba. With a twist of his fingers he righted the cup, replaced the liquid in it and kept it suspended there between them for a moment. He met Pepper’s eyes with a speculative gaze.

“Oh, Jesus, Loki, no!” Stark yelled, stumbling between them. Loki twitched one finger and the cup sailed lightly over to the bar, landing there without a sound. Loki laughed softly. Banner heard everyone let out the breath they had been holding. His blood pressure had risen during the incident. He needed to go downstairs and do some work, get out of this pressure cooker.

But Pepper wasn’t finished. She took a step towards Loki. “What do you want with Tony? You don’t care about him. When you were human, Tony took you in. He kept you alive, even though you killed all those innocent people.”

Loki was trying to look bored. “He needn’t have bothered,” he said arrogantly, “if he expected something for it.”

Pepper narrowed her eyes. “He should have let you die, you monster!” she spat. Loki looked as if he were standing still in a high wind. He didn’t answer as Pepper grabbed her case and marched out to the elevators with Stark at her heels. Romanov followed. Banner went, too, hoping he could escape to the lab and get out of this madhouse before something even worse happened.

Banner and Romanov hung back from the elevators a bit, waiting to see what transpired between Pepper and Stark. “Pepper, I need you,” Tony was saying. “I’m lost without you. I can’t figure out who I am.” He sounded broken, ashamed. He held out a hand to her. She batted it away.

“I know,” she said coldly. “You should have thought of that earlier. I have some personal days coming. Some? I have hundreds. So, I’m taking a couple of weeks off. And when I come back I’ll decide if I’m going to quit.” Strangely, this seemed to calm Stark down.

“Okay, sweetheart, okay. Take all the time you need. I’ll be here waiting for you. I swear, I’ll....”

Pepper held up an imperious hand. “Don’t swear,” she said. “Don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep. Go away. Get back in there and call housekeeping before that whiskey ruins the carpet.” She snatched away her hand when Stark tried to take it up and kiss it. He walked obediently to the door and turned to look at her. “Go!” she ordered. He did.

The elevator arrived, and Romanov slipped ahead and caught the door. “Pepper,” she said, “don’t do it. He needs you.”

“I know that.” Pepper looked annoyed. “Look, Natasha, it’s none of your business, but we’ve done this before. This is what we do."

“But he’s being self-destructive.”

“Don’t you think I know it?” Pepper snapped. “He just needs to get it out of his system.”

“That won’t work,” Nat said firmly.

“Oh, you don’t think so?” Pepper asked, bemused. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen. First he’ll do it again. No, it’s true,” she said, holding up a hand to stop Nat from speaking. “I’ve been here before. Of course he’ll do it again. Loki is still here, and I’m not. Finally, he’ll send Loki away. Or Loki will leave, I don’t know which. Then he’ll torment himself with guilt. He won’t have anyone to talk to. His appointments and papers will be a disaster. He’ll miss me more every day. And by the time I come back, Tony will fall at my feet. He’ll promise it will never happen again, and it won’t—for a year or two, if I’m lucky. And, meanwhile, I’ll have a few days at the spa, and time to see some friends—yes, amazing, isn’t it?—I still have friends.” She entered the elevator, which had started buzzing, and pushed the button for her floor. “Now, let go of that door so I can make my dramatic exit.”

Nat obeyed. Turning, she looked at Banner and smiled humorlessly, shaking her head. With great effort, he smiled back.

“Clint and Cap and I are going to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” she said. “Come with us. Someone has to stop Loki before he brings the Chitauri down on us again. Stark is compromised now.”

Banner shook his head, not convinced it was just Loki who needed to be stopped. “S.H.I.E.L.D.? No thanks,” he said simply, and then he took the stairs.

***

Loki stood at the windows, far from everyone else, with his hands joined behind his back, giving the impression that he was watching the storm rage on. In the reflection from the glass, he could see what the others were doing, which interested him more than the rain.

By the time Romanov got back to the main room Stark had taken a new bottle of bourbon into his bedroom and shut the door. Cap said a few quiet words to Hawkeye and left the building in disgust. Thor was glaring at Loki, and Hawkeye was standing around uncomfortably watching them both. Loki found the whole scene highly amusing. Pepper’s arrival had thrown everything into disarray. Loki had given them some disturbing information about Thanos and the Chitauri, but they were now completely focused on the sexual drama that had just taken place.

“Are you ready?” Nat asked Hawkeye briefly. “Cap will meet us there.”

“Yeah. Is Banner coming?”

“No, and it’s just as well. He seemed upset.”

Hawkeye shuddered. “We don’t want that. Hey, Thor?” Thor turned away from glaring at his brother. The rain had turned to mist, but the sky was still a dismal gray. “We’re going back to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Clint told him quietly. “Fury needs to know what’s going on here. Whether or not anything Loki said was true, if the Chitauri come again, we need to be ready. Come with us.”

Didn’t they realize that Loki could hear them? Thor must know, but the others were assuming that his senses were as dull as their own. Loki nearly held his breath, waiting to hear Thor’s decision. He could see Thor’s image behind him in the glass. The God of Thunder looked uncomfortable. That always made Loki smile.

“Give me a moment to speak with Loki, and I will come with you to S.H.I.E.L.D. before I return to Jane.” Loki breathed again, content. S.H.I.E.L.D. would be suitably stirred up, and Thor would leave Loki alone for the moment.

“Great,” said Clint. “We’ll meet you at the elevators. I need to get my laptop.” He and Nat walked out together.

Thor walked up behind Loki. Their eyes met in the reflection.

“Well?” Loki said sardonically. “What’s the plan? Ask me to turn myself over to S.H.I.E.L.D.? Give me to Fury for torture?”

“Don’t be dramatic, Loki,” Thor admonished him. “No one knows whether to believe you or not. You claim that the Chitauri kidnapped and tortured you, but that they didn’t ask you anything. You led us into an encounter with them, but all they took was Stark’s suit with Jarvis in it. Why? None of your story makes sense. And you have not given us enough information to take action against them.”

“You’re right, brother,” Loki said. “It doesn’t make sense, yet it is the truth. And now?” He laughed and turned around to put his back to the windows. “What was it you really wanted to ask me, Thor?” he said nastily, showing his teeth.

Thor spoke in spite of himself. It was obvious he had been holding on to this question for an hour. “You never answered me. Did you take Stark by force?”

“I knew it!” Loki crowed. “It’s always about _ergi_ with you, isn’t it, Thor?”

“That is not what I asked you. Customs here are different, I know,” Thor continued doggedly. “But Tony Stark is a comrade-in-arms, and he has saved both of our lives. It would be wrong to—”

“I did not rape him,” Loki snarled through gritted teeth. “And if you’re asking did I make him _argr_ , then, as the mortals are so fond of saying, that ship sailed long before Stark laid eyes on me.” Loki took a step closer, as if he was coming in for a kiss. “And, now,” Loki said, speaking softly, very close to Thor’s lips, “I think you should tell me what you and the Lady Jane get up to in the dark.”

Thor was so indignant he sputtered, unable to get out a coherent word.

“No? Then stop asking me what I did with Stark. Because I am not going to tell you.”

Thor’s indignation suddenly deflated. “You’re right,” he said, embarrassed. “I don’t know why I….”

Loki almost took pity on him then. It was so easy, baiting Thor, making him jealous. The sexual feelings between them would be particularly useful—as well as amusing—for Loki’s plan. He trailed a hand down the side of Thor’s face, combing through his hair. “I know why,” he said seductively.

But Thor stepped back and shook his head as if coming out of a trance. “Loki, I have to tell you,” he said, “that I’m going to S.H.I.E.L.D. with the Captain and Agents Romanov and Barton. We will tell Fury what is happening with the Chitauri so that he can be ready in case of an attack. And, after, I will go back to Jane. Will you come with us? Or, if not,” he said, seeing the contemptuous expression that Loki did nothing to hide, “will you come to Jane’s later and speak with me? We need to know if you learned anything else about the Chitauri’s plans.”

Loki hadn’t expected that, but he suddenly thought of a use he could put it to. “Very well,” he said slowly, “I will go to Jane’s and speak with you.”

“Thor,” Hawkeye called from the door to the elevators, “we need to go.”

“I’m coming,” said Thor, without taking his eyes off Loki.

Loki waved him off casually. “You go. I’ll follow later.”

“But, until then—what will you—where will you—”

Loki met his eyes, amused. “I have some unfinished business with Stark. It might take a while. I’ll leave you some time with your lady love before I come on the scene and ruin everything.” His voice dripped with innuendo, but Thor wasn’t really hearing him.

“Loki,” Thor said hesitantly, “if you are involved in something you cannot stop…if this Consort of Death has some hold over you….”

Loki realized that Thor, despite his anger and jealousy, was trying to help. But Thor had decided that Loki was a puppet in a sinister invasion plot. Loki was moved, and then he was furious. By the Norns, how slowly Thor’s mind worked! Where had Thor been, when Loki had fallen? Where had Thor been, when The Other had tortured Loki for a year, a year that felt like a century, until he had knelt to Thanos, sworn fealty, taken the staff and set about conquering Midgard? Why hadn’t Thor worried after him then?

“No one has a hold over me,” Loki said stiffly, lips drawn back over bared teeth, “no one ever has. Whatever I have done, I have done of my own will.” And he smoothed away the memories and convinced himself once again that it was true.

“But you will come to New Mexico,” Thor said uncertainly.

“I will come,” Loki said. They looked at each other, and their thoughts and feelings were miles apart.

Thor nodded once and went to join the others.

The three got into the elevator together, leaving Loki looking pensively out at the rain.


	10. Interlude

Stark sat in bed in his boxers, slouched up against the headboard with a new bottle of whiskey in his hand, thinking about Pepper. The bedroom door, which he had locked, opened suddenly. No one was there.

“Lock the door behind you, would you, Loki?” Stark said sharply. The door shut and the lock clicked home. Loki appeared out of thin air as he was stepping up to sit cross-legged on the bed. Stark handed him the bottle. Loki took a swig and handed it back.

“That could have gone better, with Pepper,” Loki said with more humor than Stark would have liked.

“Where is everybody?” Stark asked, not relishing the idea that his friends were outside knowing Loki was in here with him.

“They’ve all gone,” Loki said, uncrossing his legs and stretching them out in front of him. “We’re the only ones here. Banner went downstairs. Romanov and Barton took Thor and the Captain to consult with their friend Nick Fury, and afterwards my brother will visit his paramour.”

Stark looked him over impassively. Loki was a big man, tall and muscular despite his lean frame. The funny thing was, next to Thor, he looked almost slight. But here, alone with him, Stark felt the power radiating off his body. Loki was wearing a forest green tunic and pants, but no armor, and he was barefoot. “How do you and Thor do that thing with your clothes?” Stark asked, gesturing towards him with the bottle and then taking another swig. “You didn’t bring any luggage with you but you’re always wearing different stuff.”

Loki’s smile was a bit chilly, as if Stark had asked an indiscreet question. “Magic,” he said, vaguely waving a desultory hand.

“Shit, yeah. Magic. Whatever,” Stark said, unaccountably annoyed at Loki’s evasion.

“Your woman will come back to you, you know,” Loki said, reaching for the bottle. “Look at who you are. You have money. You are well known on this little world.”

Stark looked up from where he had been contemplating the bottle cradled in his lap. “You think that’s why she’s with me?” he scoffed. “Because I’m rich and famous?” He handed the whiskey over and watched as Loki drank.

Loki shrugged. “Women enjoy high rank and riches.” 

“Oh, you’re an expert on women, now?” At this point Stark figured he had completely lost his mind. He was starting to feel companionable sitting around in bed with Loki sharing jolts from a bottle of bourbon and talking about women like a pair of old frat buddies.

Loki went on as though he had not spoken. “And they’re most likely to come back when they think you don’t care whether they do or not.”

Stark tried to find this dialogue amusing and failed. “Shut up, Loki.”

“I’d like to see you make me.” Loki regarded him through half-closed eyes, his head cocked to one side. He was slouched back on his elbows with his legs extended straight before him. To Stark, that posture said “do me” in bright, shining neon letters ten feet high. His reptile brain was telling him to jump the guy. But this was Loki. Is that what he really meant? Most men would have run screaming, but not Stark. He had to find out the hard way.

Watching Loki’s face, he moved over to him on the bed and, sliding one hand around the back of Loki’s head, took a good handful of hair and pulled Loki’s face to his for a hungry kiss. He used his teeth, and he wasn’t gentle. In the split second before Loki’s mouth responded, Stark wondered how far he could push this before Loki got mad and broke every bone in his body. The thought made him instantly hard. Now he knew he was nuts—certifiable. But that didn’t change anything. Breaking the kiss, he shoved Loki down flat on the bed and straddled him.

“When I tell you to shut up, you just shut up,” he said, wondering when the blow would come. Whatever Loki did to him, he deserved it. Both of them were asking for it, each in his own way, but Stark had more to lose.

“Impudent mortal.” Loki grinned at him indulgently. Okay, that was good. They were playing the same game.

Stark tugged at Loki’s shirt, and Loki shucked it off while Stark pulled off his pants. He guessed gods went commando, as he himself had been known to do, because he didn’t see any underwear. He also didn’t see any signs of mistreatment.

“Hey, I thought you were tortured,” he blurted, wondering again if he were signing his own death warrant. As usual, he couldn’t stop his mouth from running, but right now the stakes were pretty high. “What did they do to you?”

“Inquisitive, aren’t you?” Loki said sardonically. He waved a hand and suddenly Stark could see that his skin was covered with lacerations, bruises, and other damage in all stages of healing. If each of these scars represented a blow, Loki had been beaten and tortured far beyond human endurance. 

Stark’s hands trailed across his battered chest and down his wounded arms. “Shit,” he breathed. “Do they still hurt?” He touched the welts on Loki’s throat and the cuts and bruises on his face, wondering why he was being allowed to get this close.

“They’re healed,” Loki said crisply. “It just takes time for the marks to fade. And energy I need to expend elsewhere.” With this last phrase he reestablished his glamour and ran his hands down Stark’s own scarred chest.

“There’s no way I could hurt you, right?” Stark asked nervously.

Loki rolled his eyes. “If it helps, just remember that I could snap your spine with one hand.”

“Uh, that actually doesn’t help.” Stark’s erection had fallen, and he wondered why he had pissed away this chance with talk when he could have been fucking a god. “Because _my_ scars hurt,” he continued compulsively, conscious that he had never told anyone this before. “It burned like hell when the reactor was in there, and ever since they cracked my chest there’s scar tissue and wires holding the bones together, and it feels like....”

With an impatient sigh, Loki laid a hand flat on Stark’s sternum. For a second, all Stark saw was green light, filling his eyes, his lungs, his brain. Gasping for breath, he recoiled and grabbed his chest with both hands like a dying man. _This must be the end. He had bored Loki to death and the god was stopping his heart._ There was an unfamiliar lightness, a feeling that he had suddenly come untethered and could float through the ceiling and up into the sky. Then he got it. The pain was gone. He looked down and saw that the scars were gone, too. 

“What did you do?” he panted. “Holy shit, I haven’t taken a painless breath since Afghanistan.”

“I knit the bone and removed the wires,” Loki said impatiently, waving away Stark’s stammered gratitude. “It’s fixed.” Loki never said thank you, but he also never asked you to say it to him. No matter what he did, he didn’t bother to take credit or accept blame. He had already moved on to the next thing. “Now, weren’t you in the middle of doing something?” Loki added suggestively.

A minute before, Stark had been wondering if he still had the stamina to fuck Loki properly after their session in the morning. But now he felt reenergized, invincible. A golden light seemed to suffuse everything he saw. “Yeah,” he said, impertinently, “I was getting ready to fuck you into the middle of next week.” 

“Well, get on with it.” Loki pulled Stark down against him for a long, lewd kiss.

So the idea here was role reversal. Stark wanted to be anything but predictable. Boring this god was probably the cardinal sin, and he had already pressed his luck, so he skipped further kissing and slid straight down to take Loki’s cock into his mouth. Loki huffed out a breath as if he had taken a gut punch, and his long fingers scrabbled through Stark’s hair.

Stark could find his way around a dick, all right, even though this one had a foreskin. Guys who had a foreskin were easier to surprise, since they were so much more sensitive under there. He pulled it back and played around with it, sucking hard, and got the reaction he was looking for.

Loki was pretty high when Stark went to enter him, pushing Loki’s knees up against his chest. Grabbing his hand, Loki filled it with lube conjured from nowhere. Stark slid inside and started banging into him hard, because it was that kind of party. Loki moved under him, opening to him, completely uninhibited. When Stark grabbed Loki’s wrists and held them down against the mattress, Loki laughed at him and let him do it. 

Stark was flying, high as a kite. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be Thor or Loki—powerful, free, unstoppable. It must be the magic Loki had filled him with. It was like huffing oxygen. Your brain felt quick and bright, a million miles ahead of where it ought to be, and there was this clarity about things, a kind of rarified experience like the hit you got off cocaine when it was all new and pure, before it became a dirty habit.

They were grinning at each other, laughing at this stupid thing they were doing, this thing that should never have happened and shouldn’t happen again, but there was a connection here, tenuous and absurd as it was. Stark could feel it slipping away even as he acknowledged it.

Loki came dramatically, arching his neck and making a show of struggling against Stark’s hands, which of course was all pretense. But seeing Loki’s face come undone like that was more than Stark could stand, and he came, too, moaning as Loki laughed at him.

And before Stark knew what was happening, Loki had flipped him over backwards and shoved inside him. There was always a catch with Loki. He lured you in but then he always got his own back. But Stark didn’t care. He still felt glorious.

Loki was on top now, shaking out dark hair over bare shoulders, a clever grin lighting up his face as he fucked Stark hard, just on the other side of rough, just the way Stark liked it. Stark couldn’t believe that he was hard again. Four times in as many hours. It must be the magic.

And, magic or not, Loki knew how to do this. Stark figured, given a thousand years of experience, he might fuck this well, too, but even then it would still take some thought. It was Loki’s pure strength, his ease, his stamina, the endlessly inventive ways he knew how to provoke or respond, the way he knew what Stark wanted before he did. It seemed as if Loki was doing this all for him with perfect attention. Stark had never been fucked so personally before.

Loki was inside him, but he rolled them over and over, apparently not caring whether he was on top—with his long hair trailing over Stark’s newly healed chest—or underneath, as Stark labored over him, reaching backwards so he could take Loki’s balls into his hand and pull or squeeze them until he saw the effect in Loki’s eyes. Somehow it was comforting to know that gods had balls.

Soon, without either saying a word, their fucking became a contest about who could make the other one come first. They grappled across the bed, each doing his best to push the other over by squeezing, grabbing, kissing, and each was on to the other’s games. Stark was impressed that Loki didn’t use his greater strength to win, but Loki certainly didn’t hold back from using his lying skills, and that’s what finally won the day. Having just thought of it, out of desperation, Stark latched on to Loki’s nipples with both hands, squeezing as hard as he could, and Loki cried out, convulsing and gripping Stark’s shoulders hard enough to leave fingerprints. Stark let himself come a moment later, only to realize that Loki was still hard inside him. Loki looked squarely into his eyes and smiled as he fucked Stark through his climax and then let Stark watch his face as he took his own pleasure.

They dozed for a while. The rain had stopped soon after Thor left the building, and now the golden late afternoon sunlight played across the sheets. At some point, while Stark was half asleep, Loki rolled him over, raising his legs, and slid into him without any preliminaries, while holding his wrists down hard against the mattress. Stark found it a little humiliating to be taken like that, but it was also incredibly hot. He didn’t overthink it—he was too busy gasping and moaning as Loki found yet another new way of driving him wild with lust. Instead of pounding in, Loki teased him by tilting and rocking his hips without drawing out too far. At times, Loki would fuck him harder, then tease him again, until Stark begged, and cursed him, and begged some more.

All the time, Loki grinned at him, but never said a word. He bit Stark’s shoulders, marking him. He knew what he was doing, knew that Stark was utterly under his sway, and that he wanted to be, dammit. Stark had never given himself up this completely to anyone, and it was mind-blowing to be mastered like this—at least for now—to be held down—at least for this moment—to be pleasured, and denied, and pleasured again, until the final swift flight to a blinding orgasm.

Somehow Loki timed it so that they came together, without releasing Stark’s wrists until the end. Loki simply touched his forehead to Stark’s and breathed out hard—an “Ah!” that, to Stark, seemed forced out past Loki’s defenses. To his surprise, Loki kissed him once, deeply, and then subsided with his face against Stark’s neck. Stark didn’t have a clue what was going through Loki’s mind, but he had learned something unexpected about himself. He hoped no one else was on this floor of the tower, because he knew he’d yelled himself hoarse.

They lay together for a while until Loki finally heaved himself off and lay facedown on the bed. Stark wasn’t sure if Loki had ruined him for other men, but, unless he forgot a lot about this day, he was going to be hoping for something he couldn’t have for a long time to come.

There was always a moment when these things ended. Stark lay very still, feeling the heat coming off Loki’s body, wondering what he was thinking. It was weird, but now he knew how Pepper felt wondering what he was thinking. The light outside was waning when Loki sat up and stretched and said, “I’m hungry,” and that was so normal, and yet so little what Stark had expected, that he knew exactly what to say.

“I know a little place around the corner. Let’s take a shower and go down there.”

“A shower? With you?” Loki asked haughtily, but Stark gave him such a withering look that he actually did get into Stark’s enormous walk-in shower and wash like a human being. Stark was having trouble remembering that he wasn’t one, especially when they were sitting across from one another at the formica table in the shawarma place.

Loki had decided to wear all black clothing and a full-length coat, so that, with his aristocratic features and long black hair, he looked like a famous European maestro or architect slumming in this well-known dive. People at the other tables glanced at him from time to time as if they couldn’t quite place him. If they only knew.

Stark had seen Loki eat and drink as a mortal, usually ravenously, but he hadn’t quite realized that Loki the Asgardian, or the god, or whatever he really was, could eat like this. Three whole sandwiches and several beers went down without Loki ever giving the appearance of gorging himself. Even after everything he’d done that day, Stark only managed two sandwiches, and he used a lot more napkins than Loki did.

At one point Stark thought he saw a scrap of lettuce on Loki’s lip, and, without thinking, reached out to brush it away. But when he touched the pale skin he realized it was a shiny place, a subtle defect in the skin brought out by the harsh fluorescent lights. “Is that one of the scars...?” he began awkwardly. “Thor told us about the dwarf who....” Stark realized it had been a mistake when he saw Loki’s eyes freeze over. A jolt of cold fear hit his gut.

Reaching out swiftly, Loki took Stark’s chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger and tilted his head back to look into his eyes. “There are limits, Stark,” he said tightly. Stark mumbled an apology and gestured for another round of beers. Loki gradually relaxed his grip and took his hand away. He seemed placated, but thoughtful.

“Shawarma,” Loki said slowly, as if trying the word in his mouth. “This is where you Avengers were while Fury was torturing me.”

Stark froze with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “When Fury did what?”

Loki leaned forward to tell him. “After the battle. My brother took me to him, do you remember?” Stark nodded. “I had that...muzzle over my mouth...that thing that Thor loves because it makes him think he is my equal.”

Crazy time. Stark was suddenly afraid to breathe, but he spoke anyway. “Thor said at the time that Fury had interrogated you, but Fury never told us what you said.”

Loki laughed. “Nothing. I said nothing. What could I say with that thing in my mouth?”

“Didn’t they remove the...the gag?” “Muzzle” didn’t seem to be a word that Loki liked.

Loki rolled his eyes. “What would have happened to Nick Fury if Thor had removed the gag?”

Stark imagined it. “Oh,” he said, realizing that, in the trauma of the time, he had never thought that much about it. “So what happened? What did Fury do?”

Loki stared at the remnant of his third sandwich as if had decided to murder it. “He chained my hands above my head. Then he sliced my clothing up the back and whipped me with a metal chain. For an hour.”

“I don’t believe it,” Stark said, more surprised than he should have been. At the time, if offered the chance, he might have done a lot more to Loki than that.

Loki shrugged. “Ask Thor. Better still, ask Nick Fury.”

“Did Thor intend for that to happen?”

Loki’s smile returned. “An excellent question,” he said, “but whether he did or not, I returned to Asgard with very little skin on my back.”

Stark decided to take another risk. “You have to admit—you had just destroyed half of his city,” he ventured. “Did you think he was going to buy you a sandwich?”

Loki laughed. “So I had. I got a beating while you had a sandwich. And I didn’t even get that drink you offered me.”

Where should Stark file this information? Under “How Far Will Nick Fury Really Go,” or under “Loki’s Egomania”? He really didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Although he despised torture when practiced by one human on another, he didn’t give a fuck if Fury had beaten the crap out of Loki while the Avengers were eating shawarma. He figured Loki had deserved every stripe. He didn’t want to discuss it any further with Loki, didn’t want to tell him what that glimpse of Chitauri space or that long, cold, dark fall from nowhere had done to him.

“You’ve had it now—that drink, I mean,” Stark said, picking absently at the wet label on his beer bottle with a fingernail. “I shared my bourbon with you.”

“You drink too much,” Loki said suddenly, laughing.

Stark almost choked on his beer. “I—what?”

“The Chitauri and their leader have Jarvis. They will act against you. Will you be ready? Or will you be in bed with a bottle?”

“Hell, yes, I’ll be ready,” Stark said angrily.

“I wonder,” Loki said speculatively, his steely, green-eyed gaze boring into Stark’s head. “You have no suit and Jarvis is working for your enemies.”

“I can build a suit,” Stark said aggressively. “I have enough of Jarvis left. All the software is there. I did it without him before. And how do I know that you’re not working against me? Maybe you’re just testing me to see if I’m ready or not. Maybe you’ve been spying on me. Is that what today was about? Getting information for the Chitauri?”

“I could have killed you today,” Loki said with a feral grin, “but it was much more entertaining to fuck you. And the Chitauri have obtained all the information they need from Jarvis, I’m sure.” A woman at the next table turned to stare at them. Her rounded face glowed pale like a full moon. 

“Would you shut the hell up?” Stark said in a half-whisper. “Don’t forget, I fucked you, too.”

“I fucked you _three times_ ,” Loki said with relish, loudly enough for the woman to hear, “and your friends hate me,” he continued, “hate that I was in bed with you today. Do they imagine I’ll corrupt you to evil?”

“Yeah, I can’t say they were happy about it,” Stark agreed. He gave up the idea of trying to make Loki stop saying embarrassing things and decided to stare the moon-faced woman down instead. She finally looked away.

“It’s none of their business,” Loki said, “but of course they will decide that everything involving me is their business. And then there’s Thor.”

“Thor,” Stark said, suddenly thinking of the big guy. “Is he going to come after me for this?” He was more than half joking, but he wanted to see what Loki would say.

“I doubt it,” Loki shrugged. “Thor will never change. He wants me and he hates himself for it. And he has the Lady Jane, so he really can’t really complain about my dalliances.”

“You know,” Stark said, amused by the old-fashioned word, “today might have been the best sex of my life. But I still want Pepper.”

“As I want Thor.” Their eyes met. Loki looked perfectly sincere. That didn’t necessarily mean anything, but Stark was inclined to believe him.

“Then we’re acting against our own best interests here,” Stark said, putting his empty beer bottle on the table and wiping his hands on his pants.

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki said vaguely, abruptly losing interest in the conversation. He rose from the table and wandered outside. Stark followed, figuring he was about to disappear.

Once out on the sidewalk, Stark felt he had to say something. “Are you going to New Mexico to join Thor?”

“To the desert, yes.” Loki had a faraway look in his eyes, and Stark wondered again what he was thinking. After the exchange of conversational non sequiturs they had just enjoyed, he was sure that Loki’s mind was elsewhere, that he was hatching a plan of some kind. But what plan? Or was he just thinking of Thor and Jane, together this night? Was that causing him pain?

Stark wondered what Loki would do if he kissed him right here on the street. And then he wondered why he’d even had that thought. Because Loki was no longer paying attention to him? Because Loki had embarrassed him at the restaurant? They’d been having a macho contest all day—a contest that Stark didn’t have a prayer of winning. He could so easily get pulled into this. It could get dangerous. Better let it end here like this and chalk it up to experience.

“Farewell, Stark,” Loki was saying. “Be ready.”

Tony opened his mouth to speak, to ask “Ready for what?” but Loki was already striding up Madison towards 43rd, and then, suddenly, he was gone.

Stark stood there looking after him, at the empty space where Loki had been. What the fuck had just happened?

Loki was powerful, nasty, unpredictable, capricious, implacable, merciless, and damn good in the sack, all the things a god should be, but had he just done something kind? The aftereffects of the open-heart surgery had left Stark with pain that he couldn’t cope with. The booze ended up making him act like an asshole to everyone he cared for. Stark hadn’t felt this well in four years. He was ready to do whatever it took to be a better man, to get ready for this fight, to win Pepper back. It had a purpose after all, his interlude with Loki.

A year before, Stark had saved Loki’s life, fed him, protected him, kept him out of the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D. If he hadn’t, Loki would still be locked up in chains somewhere, being experimented on or tortured, or both. Nick Fury had a long memory and a taste for vengeance that never seemed to quit.

Stark had never expected anything back for what he’d done for Loki, except perhaps more grief, and now Loki had given him this. No more pain. A heart that beat like everyone else’s, without the imminent threat of metal knives pointing at it, without a reactor in his chest, or a breastbone woven with wires that pinched and poked him every time he breathed. Had Loki actually repaid a debt?

Stark could work now. He could throw away the bottle. He fished in his pocket and found the transponder that he hadn’t had the heart to wear since Jarvis was taken, and stuck it back behind his ear.

“Computer,” he, said firmly, not wanting to call it “Jarvis” anymore, “I’m coming down to work in B Lab. Activate Dummy and do the setup.”

“Understood,” said the cold, mechanical voice.

A cold breeze brushed Stark’s face. Zipping his jacket, he turned up 42nd Street and started walking briskly towards the tower. After being fucked like that for hours Tony should have been curled up in a corner whimpering, but he felt wonderful.

When he got back to the tower he went up to his room and exchanged his jeans for sweats, which would work better under the suit he was going to build. Seeing the whiskey bottle on the bedside table, he capped it and stuck it back in the bar. He wouldn’t be needing that for a while. 

“Computer, call housekeeping to my quarters,” he said. “There’s a spill on the rug in my bedroom. Southwest corner.”

“Understood,” said the cold voice that was Jarvis and yet not him. Jarvis had been kidnapped, and somehow Stark was going to get him back.


	11. Aftermath

As Loki walked away from Stark he was conscious of making an exit. Stark’s eyes were on him, he was sure, so he maintained the illusion of strength until he couldn’t, then disappeared and stumbled sideways into the polished granite of a skyscraper. He leaned against it, shivering with exhaustion, as people passed within inches of him, all unknowing he was there.

Humans wouldn’t take orders. You couldn’t simply tell them what they needed to do. You needed to manipulate them into it.

Loki had finally gotten Stark back on track, back in the lab working on a suit instead of sitting in bed drinking and feeling sorry for himself. But he had gotten too involved with his own game, and it had taken all his strength.

Toying with Stark had been highly amusing. It had been years—far too many—since Loki had taken a willing mortal to bed like that, and Stark had adored him, in his own irreverent way. Stark would _miss_ him.

Ah, how Stark had looked at him when he took away the pain! Stark’s eyes had blossomed from fear into joy, as an impossible hope became real. Loki was used to being looked at in a different way, as the bringer of pain and disappointment, as the Trickster—a reminder of mortality and life’s unavoidable injustice. This had been worship of a kind—and Loki had enjoyed far too little of that in his long life. He savored the thought of it as he stood gathering his strength. He was a fool. He had spent far too much of his already limited power on one mortal just to bask in a little fleeting appreciation. He had other work to do and little time.

He had taken sustenance, but now he needed to rest. His wounds had not yet healed, and just concealing them took energy he did not have. Of course he had lied to Stark when he said that his wounds were almost healed and gave him no pain. The pain was considerable when he lacked the _seidr_ to ease it.

If only he had a couple of days to recover—but he didn’t. Everything was happening too fast. Thanos expected news of the Soul Gem, and if he didn’t get it, he might attack before Loki had his plans in place.

The white-hot magic he had stolen from Dione still nestled uncomfortably under his breastbone, roiling within him as if eager to escape. It tempted him to use it, but he had to save it for Thanos. He hoped he would have his chance to use it before it burned its way through him. But right now he needed to go to Thor. Dr. Foster might have knowledge that could help him communicate with Jarvis to discover what he could about Thanos’ plans.

He thought he had detected the entrance to a Way, a long-disused one that he had not felt before when he was mortal and his senses had been so dulled. He guessed that it was up in Fort Tryon Park, near the tip of Manhattan, a place where he had sometimes gone to look out over the Hudson to the then unattainable New Jersey shore.

But how to get there? Normally he could move faster than a mortal and walk there in a few minutes. Or he could become a raven and fly. But now neither of those options jived with his exhaustion. Remembering the city well from his exile there, he knew the trains, then his only means of transportation. Much as he hated it, he was reduced to this. Doing an about face, he walked swiftly to 42nd Street, brushing past Stark at he stood staring at the spot where he had seen Loki disappear. Stark shivered, zipped his jacket, and started walking towards the tower.

Loki boarded the A Train at 42nd Street and Broadway and suffered it until 190th. People stared at him on the train. He had let his glamour drop, so the wounds on his neck were showing above the collar of his Midgardian garb. He turned his jacket collar up and glared at anyone who stared at him, but it really didn’t help him deal with the humiliation of this long, vulgar, noisy ride.

After an interminable journey, even to his immortal sensibilities, he reached street level with an elevator and exited through a squat stone building with cage-like doors. Loki walked into the dark woods and to the highest point in the park. He stepped up onto a large rock outcropping that overlooked the river. The stone was still warm from the sun. Far below him, cars whooshed by on the road leading to the monumental bridge. The moon was full tonight, leaving shining points on the gunmetal water. He felt slightly restored just being here alone. It was time to go to Thor. Without hesitation, he stepped off the rock into thin air.

***

Loki landed in a crouch on the rough desert floor. He stayed there for a few minutes, catching his breath and looking around to see where he had fallen. In the light of the full moon the sand glistened like ocean waves. He remembered sailing Skidbladnir back from Nidavellir, euphoric about the gifts he was bringing to Asgard. If he had only known how that adventure would end he would have turned around and left Asgard forever, seeking a new life somewhere away from them all, his so-called family. But instead he had given Gungnir to Odin and Mjolnir to Thor, and for his pains he had been tortured, silenced. This time he would attain his victory and disappear, not expecting praise or acknowledgment from anyone, least of all Thor, and he would be on his way again.

He had arrived just outside the town of Puente Antiguo, the place he had partially burned with the Destroyer, where he had almost killed Thor. Not bothering to conceal himself, he stalked its empty streets. It was late, and the people were in their homes. He could feel them behind their closed doors, sleeping or waking. As he went by, a small disturbance scuttled through their dreams and was gone, so that, awake, most of them would remember nothing.

He went directly to the place where Jane lived and worked, wondering what he would find there. Thor had expected him to follow right away, but he had not been ready to take orders from Thor, or to leave Stark. And now it was the middle of the night and Loki’s already failing powers were at a low ebb.

Cloaking himself in invisibility, he entered the building silently. No one was visible, but Thor was here. Loki could feel him. He climbed to the roof, and there he found them.

Thor was lying back on a kind of divan and Jane was over him. Neither was naked but their bodies were joined. She was lurching forward and back in small motions, her face over Thor’s as he held her, both hands at her waist. “Oh,” she said softly, and then again. Thor was saying her name, whispering something about love and beauty, and Loki could have burned her up like a cinder where she perched atop Thor, if only he had been angry. But he was far from angry. He was an empty shell that had once held anger. Infinitely weary, he had no strength left, and he needed to rest and heal before he could deal with Thor and Jane, before he could move against Thanos. All he knew was that he must win this battle even if he never won another.

Stumbling, reeling with exhaustion, he found a dilapidated motel outside of town that had many empty rooms. He entered one, warded the perimeter, and slept fifty hours straight.


	12. A Visit

_When Thor backhanded Loki across the jaw, Loki twisted and went down hard. He rose quickly, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. When he smiled, his teeth were red._

_“Liar!” he jeered. “You call me a liar, but look to yourself.”_

_With a roar of pure hate, Thor threw Loki to the ground and took him there, pushing into him as Loki screamed in pain and fury._

Thor awoke with a start in darkness after fitful dreams. He remembered flashes, intermittent scenes, glad at least that he didn’t remember more. How could his imagination conceive of such things? He had never raped Loki or anyone. Why would he do it in his dreams?

He glanced at Jane. She was fast asleep, breathing quietly, innocent of Thor’s vile and perverted dreams. What would she think of him if he told her?

Sitting up, he pulled the blanket higher on her shoulders. The desert air was cool at night, and they were sleeping on the roof.

He listened, but heard only the usual nighttime sounds: insects, coyotes, the occasional car passing by, or the distant drone of an airplane far out above the desert. Loki should have been here a day ago.

Two days had passed since Thor had left Loki at Stark Tower. He wondered where his brother was. Did he still linger in Stark’s bed? Was he off wandering? Had he ever intended to come?

Involuntarily, he pictured Loki and Stark together, their lips joined, their arms around each other. Loki’s long hair brushed their shoulders as they moved together. It made Thor angry, desperate, to imagine them like that. Something in his chest grew tight and cold.

“Is that was this is about?” Jane had asked him earlier. “Are you thinking about turning Loki over to S.H.I.E.L.D. because you’re jealous?”

He had gone to see Director Fury with Agent Romanov, Hawkeye, and Cap, but the way they had talked about Loki—as a monstrous, alien invader who needed to be destroyed—made Thor want to back away from them, and indeed he had left soon after arriving, without contributing anything to their plan. They had looked at him coldly then, suspiciously, as if he were a traitor in their midst. They had only just begun to trust him again, and here he was, refusing to help them take down his brother.

Thor himself had called Loki a monster, and yet that hadn’t really been what he meant to say at all. He had been angry, sick and tired of Loki’s games—and, yes, he had been jealous. But, more than that, Thor feared for Loki’s fate, worried that the Avengers would vanquish him again—perhaps even kill him—or send him back to Asgard to be imprisoned. Despite what Loki had done, what he might do, Thor didn’t want Loki in a dungeon somewhere. He wanted him by his side. In his arms.

As he finally faced that fact, all the high-minded reasons he had constructed for turning Loki over to S.H.I.E.L.D. crumbled into dust.

Restless, Thor rose and stood at the edge of the roof looking over the desert. The moon had set and the hills at the desert’s edge were backlit by the light of very early dawn, though stars still twinkled in the sky. A pre-dawn breeze was rising, soft as a breath, gathering over miles of desert as the earth prepared for another day. Thor could hear grains of sand rustling against each other, rolling across the plain before him. The predators sought their burrows, as the tender creatures of the day prepared to rise. On every world, in every realm, it was ever thus.

Despite all their efforts, despite their affection for each other, he and Jane were not going to make it work. He would have to let her go. Loki’s words from his dream were true. Thor had deluded himself into thinking he could have this life with Jane, but his heart had not been in it. He was a hypocrite, as dishonest in his way as Loki was with all his lies.

Jane knew. She had known all along.

He had betrayed Loki so many times. With Odin, when they were children. By belittling his magic and conspiring against him with Fandral and Volstagg. By dragging him back to face Brokk’s punishment. They should have stood together against everyone. But Loki tricked him and he always retaliated. Where had it started, this anger they bore each other? When they had made love they had been so in tune with each other. But Thor had belittled that, too, calling it fucking. And then his plans to marry Sif had driven Loki to take desperate measures.

And did this account for Loki’s rage, his recklessness, his violent acts? Was Thor partly responsible? It was starting to seem more and more probable that Loki was working with the Chitauri, and, in so doing, that he was preparing his own destruction. Odin had intended for Loki to die on Midgard the last time; another such offense would seal his fate. Thor needed somehow to prevent whatever plan Loki had hatched, had to keep him from realizing it. The Avengers had saved Midgard from the Chitauri once before and they could do it again. If Thor kept Loki out of it, then Loki couldn’t be blamed.

Afterwards, Thor could take his brother someplace where they could be alone together, and perhaps it wasn’t too late to save Loki’s mind, to damp down the anger and jealousy that fueled his insane and violent acts. There had been love and anger and even hatred between them. But they needed to face each other to find out if anything good could be salvaged. If Thor could find Loki, he would not let him go again.

Thor would save his brother. To do it, he needed something from Asgard.

The price of saving Loki would be losing Jane. His heart sank. He needed to free her from this cycle of guilt and retribution that he and Loki were trapped in. Taking one more look at her sleeping face, he lay back down beside her and thought through his plan.

***

S.H.I.E.L.D. showed up at the crack of dawn with their black SUVs, their earpieces, and their dark glasses.

Jane met Coulson at the door while Thor, at her request, hung back and stood guard over her equipment. Agent Coulson entered the room at Jane’s invitation, and when he saw Thor he understood immediately.

Coulson chuckled drily. “We aren’t here to take your equipment again, Dr. Foster,” he said. “But we’d be interested in seeing if you have any interesting results to show us.”

“Nothing that Eric hasn’t already sent you,” Jane said with an edge of defiance. “We don’t know where the Chitauri base is. I hope you don’t suspect us of working with them.”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Coulson’s face seemed incapable of folding into a true smile, always stopping miles short of the real thing. “However,” he said, meeting Thor’s eyes, “we’d be very interested in knowing when was the last time you spoke to Loki.”

“Nearly three days ago,” Thor said briefly. “I thought he would join us here, but he apparently had other plans.”

“So, as far as you know, your brother is still in New York?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Well,” Coulson said, making a hand signal to his men standing still in the doorway, “do you mind if we wait?” Six men fanned out around the building, facing outward towards the desert and the town.

Thor wondered if Coulson had followed him here on Fury’s instructions, after his abortive visit to S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters. “If Loki sees you here," he said, trying to sound less angry than he felt, “he will not show himself.”

Coulson looked at him appraisingly. “But perhaps he needs you for his plan, and we can at least keep eyes on you.”

Jane’s cheeks paled with anger. “You’re accusing Thor?” she asked coldly.

“Jane,” Thor said, “it doesn’t matter.” He would have no trouble getting away from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s surveillance when he needed to.

But Jane continued to face Coulson with a furious look in her eyes. “If I asked you to leave right now, would you?”

Coulson shrugged. “Sorry.”

“But what if we informed you if Loki came here?”

Coulson smiled vaguely, looking as if he might strain something in his jaw. “I know that there’s been trouble between Thor and Loki, but I can’t be completely sure that Thor will give up his brother. And, besides, Loki has a way of moving quickly. Even if you told us he was here, we’d probably be too late.” He snapped his fingers at one of the black-suited men waiting like statues behind him. The man brought him an intricate construction of chains and metal covered with runes. Coulson put it on the table. “If he does come, we’d like your help putting these on him.”

Thor shifted uncomfortably, knowing in his heart that when he saw Loki next the last thing he would think of would be giving him up to Coulson. But the cuffs could aid him in his plan to force Loki to leave Midgard with him. Coulson had brought the cuffs, but Thor might be able to use them for his own purposes.

“Perhaps,” Thor said, “I could restrain Loki and then take him off your world.” He had not had a chance to talk to Jane about his plan yet, and he worried that she would understand that he was planning to leave her. He needed to talk to her privately.

Coulson laughed. “That’s not exactly what we’re looking for.”

Jane stood straight and faced Coulson, trying to master the angry tremor in her voice. “Then you might not get what you’re looking for. Now, since you refuse to leave, will you at least refrain from interfering with my work?”

“Of course, Dr. Foster.” Coulson took a position just inside the doorway and stood, arms folded, facing Jane and Thor. “As long as your work doesn’t take you away from this building.”

“Lucky for you,” Jane said, sitting angrily at her desk and taking the mouse into her hand, “it doesn’t.”

***

Loki awoke in the dingy motel room and saw pale sunlight filtering through the dusty cobwebs that draped down between the cracked plastic curtains and the yellowed plaster wall. How long had he slept? A day and a night? Longer? The Avengers wouldn’t know where he was, and their immediate thought would be to decide he was up to no good. The irony was that Thanos and The Other would also have decided by now that Loki couldn’t be trusted. Loki was no longer merely cultivating chaos—it was spiraling out of control.

He had some stories to tell on both sides. But first he had to find a way to contact Jarvis.

He had thought of asking Stark, but at Stark Tower he would have had Hawkeye and Romanov watching him every minute, and if he left his body for a time to contact Jarvis, they could capture him, or keep him from ever getting back into it. He needed Thor for this plan, and Jane probably had the knowledge to create an interface on the computer that would be compatible with his magic. If, that is, he could convince them to believe that he was working in their interest, or at least that they would get something out of what he intended to do.

At least he was rested now, and his wounds were finally healing faster, but he was ravenous. Disguised as a dusty wayfarer with torn clothing and stringy hair, he entered the town’s only café and ate a plate of eggs and meat that he paid for with money abstracted from another diner’s pocket. While he ate, he observed the coming and going of bulky black cars from the area in front of Jane’s building. S.H.I.E.L.D. was already on the scene. This might be more difficult than he had thought.

Making himself invisible, he approached the building and stood at a wide-open doorway to listen. The first thing he observed was that Thor had lost his temper.

“If you do not suspect Dr. Foster,” Thor was saying angrily, “then you have no right to disturb her work by staying in her workplace and looking through her things.”

“We don’t suspect her,” Agent Coulson said. “We suspect your brother. And we suspect you of harboring him.”

“If I knew where my brother was,” Thor said bitterly, “I would take him far away from this realm so that he could not cause trouble here again.”

 _Ah,_ Loki thought, _back to Odin’s dungeons._ Was that what Thor was suggesting? Never again would Loki allow himself to be imprisoned there.

“And how would you guarantee that?” Coulson had to crane his neck back to look at Thor’s face, but he was a game little man who showed no fear in the presence of the God of Thunder. How overwhelmingly stupid. Loki thought fleetingly of walking up behind him and wringing his neck.

“I would watch him,” Thor said grimly. “I would travel with him.” Interesting. Thor was not saying he would imprison Loki, but that he would travel with him. Loki’s heartbeat quickened. Perhaps he still had some possibility of winning Thor over.

“And, of course, you could promise me that he would never trick you, that he would never escape,” Coulson said wryly.

Thor’s cheeks flushed with anger. “He would not wish to come back here if he had...if he were...he would not wish to come back here! I give you my word.”

Coulson chuckled annoyingly. “Let me get this straight, you’re saying that you....”

But Jane had heard enough. Leaving her desk, she walked over purposefully and stood between them. “Agent Coulson, you said you wouldn’t disturb my work, but how can I work with this going on? Thor just gave you his word that he would take Loki away from Earth. Isn’t that what you want?”

“No,” Thor said explosively, but the anger was directly at Coulson, not Jane, “it is not what they want. They wish to study him—to torture him until he dies. And I will not allow it.”

Well. Things with Thor were better than expected. This seemed like the perfect time to make an entrance. Loki armed himself and prepared to drop the glamour.

He waited until Jane’s eyes flicked towards the windows to unveil himself. He watched her look and not see, then look again, her eyes getting wider and her bow-shaped mouth dropping into a startled O. He stepped towards her, feeling in control for the first time in months.


	13. Journey to Nowhere

“Thor,” Jane said, but it came out as a whisper, a breath. “Thor!” A croak.

He turned and saw what she saw. And Thor smiled. Jane could feel his body leaning towards his brother, felt the tension between them like the yearning of opposite magnetic poles. She had never seen them together before, and the pull between them stunned her.

As Loki approached she watched him, fascinated. He was larger than she had expected somehow, only having seen him on television. At first impression she found him beautiful, with his lithe physique and long, luxurious hair, but when he grinned, his smile was too wide, too toothy. It made him look ugly, sinister, like a snake trying to charm her into its mouth. There was cruelty and malice in every inch of his frame, in every step he took, and he was staring straight at her. She fought the urge to back away.

But Thor was going _towards_ him, taking him by the arm and looking into his eyes. “Brother,” he said. “I thought you were not coming.”

Jane glanced towards the cuffs lying on the table. She longed to watch them snap around Loki’s wrists to tame the savagery she saw in him and to wipe that demonic grin from his face. Perhaps Thor was tricking him, gaining his confidence in order to take him captive. But she knew Thor well enough to know this wasn’t true—his open smile, the emotion in his eyes, showed that his pleasure at seeing his brother was real, if tinged with apprehension.

Coulson stepped up to them. “Loki,” he said, “you need to come with us.”

Loki laughed, of course, as he shook Thor’s hand off his arm. Coulson’s cold bravado didn’t even fool Jane. And Loki hadn’t missed the elaborate restraint lying on the table. “Do you want to die _again_ Agent Coulson? I could cut your throat this time as you tell me I lack conviction, and send your head back to Fury as a message.” He suddenly held a bronze dagger in his hand.

“Loki,” Thor admonished, as if they were boys together again and Loki was teasing a cat instead of threatening someone with a horrible death.

Loki shrugged, conceding his brother’s unspoken point. “Or, you could just go.” The knife was gone. He gestured at Coulson’s entourage and his too-shiny cars waiting outside the window. “Why you aren’t in New York now is beyond me.”

“Why should I be in New York?” Coulson asked steadily.

Loki rolled his eyes. “You’re expecting an attack on Midgard. The Chitauri are creatures of habit. Do you think they will deploy their forces out here in the desert, far away from everything? I can be in New York in a few minutes. How long will it take you to get there?”

“What do you know about the Chitauri’s plans?” Coulson asked warily.

Loki waved one hand through the air as if dismissing his own words. “I know nothing at all. I’m just speculating,” he said airily, turning his back on Coulson.

Moving quickly, Coulson grabbed the cuffs off the table and snapped them on Loki’s wrists, and, incredibly, Loki let him do it.

No one breathed. Even Coulson seemed stunned. Loki twisted against the restraints, without result. Two agents flanked him and took him by the arms and began to back him up towards the door. Loki resisted them, but they were slowly gaining ground, forcing him to take one step and then another.

“No,” Thor said, appalled, “You cannot do this. I will not allow it. Now that he is a prisoner, I will take him.”

Coulson faced Thor, blocking his way to Loki. “Loki’s coming with me,” he said to Thor with determination. “I know you had other plans, but you’re part of Stark’s group now, and this is the best thing for everyone. For all the people of Earth. You must see that.” He turned towards Loki, who was straining against the agents, breathing hard and looking panicked as he struggled in their grip. Two agents bearing what Jane thought to be monstrously oversized firearms stepped up to flank Coulson and threaten Thor.

“Don’t worry, Loki,” Coulson said with obnoxious cordiality, “we’re just saving you from another thrashing at the hands of the Avengers.”

One second Loki was there between the agents, and the next he had taken hold of Coulson’s tie and was holding a dagger at his throat. “Did you enjoy dying by my hand, little man?” he asked ferociously. Where Loki had been standing a moment before, the cuffs clattered to the floor.

It all happened so fast that Jane let out a little shriek before she could stop herself. Her heart was pounding as she tried to understand what Loki had done. Loki caught her look of surprise. He shoved Coulson away from him towards his men, but kept the dagger in his hand. The men with the oversized weapons leveled them at him and Thor simultaneously, but seemed to be having some difficulty firing. Loki waved a hand at them, and the big guns separated into their component parts as the agents tried desperately to hold onto them, showering the floor with cartridges and bits of metal.

“You see, Dr. Foster,” Loki said, swaggering towards her, “what Agent Coulson didn’t know is that you can write the runes correctly, but unless you imbue them with magic they’re useless.” He threw an unconcerned glance back at Coulson. “There’s a lesson for S.H.I.E.L.D. If you want to catch me, hire a mage.”

Turning, he gestured from right to left with the knife at Coulson and his men. “Get out of here, all of you,” he said with real menace in his glittering eyes. “I have business with my brother and his woman.” He cocked his head at them and twisted his knife in the air. “Or shall I start slitting throats?”

Coulson gestured once, and his men backed away. Without another word, S.H.I.E.L.D. packed up their shiny cars and left. The last two agents out the door were still trying furiously to gather up as many stray gun parts as possible.

***

As soon as S.H.I.E.L.D. was out of sight, Loki sat in a chair and laughed, and Thor finally had to laugh with him, perhaps more out of relief than appreciation for the joke. He pulled a chair out from the table and straddled it, facing Loki, and the two of them started a long conversation. Loki was speaking earnestly, and his face seemed to have shed some of the malice Jane had seen there before. From this distance she couldn’t hear what they were saying.

Jane stood watching them, wondering at this whole side of Thor she hadn’t known. He had tried to tell her, but she hadn’t understood the depth of this relationship. Brothers, companions, lovers, and then, for the last several years, enemies. Their relationship had gone wrong just when Jane had met Thor, when he was cast down to earth and landed on her windshield.

The first year, when Loki was in an Asgardian prison, Thor had spent most of his time in Asgard, visiting her just a few times, but when Odin banished Loki to New York, Thor had come to her. And they’d had half a year, and then more than another year, when Loki had escaped his exile and disappeared. Barely two years of something close to happiness, against a thousand years of whatever he had with Loki, and perhaps another five or six thousand years after Jane was gone. She was a blip on the radar, a bump in the road. In a romantic novel Thor would give up everything for her, find a way to make her immortal. But this was reality, and none of that was going to happen.

Thor had told Coulson he wanted to take Loki away, to travel with him and keep him away from the Earth. He was going to leave Jane, leave her to save his brother from self-destruction. Her eyes stung with tears as she watched the two of them sitting there companionably. She wasn’t sure that she could stand it, and yet she saw that it was right. Taking a deep breath, she willed the tears away and stepped forward to try to hear what Thor was saying.

“Why do you need Jane’s help?” he asked. “I have seen you find anyone, even without knowing where they were. Why not Jarvis?”

“Because the Chitauri have probably hidden him in the web that connects their consciousness. If he could get out, he would have contacted Stark by now.”

“You’re talking about contacting Jarvis?” Jane asked incredulously. “Why? And how would you do that if the Chitauri have him?”

“Jane, Loki is able to project his mind into far-away places, leaving his body behind,” Thor explained. “If he can speak to Jarvis, maybe he can find out the Chitauri’s invasion plans.”

Jane shook her head. “Astral projection? That’s impossible.”

“Difficult,” Loki said thoughtfully, “not impossible. It took me years to learn.”

“What do you need from me?” For a time Jane had already felt that she was living in a sci-fi novel, but today she had fallen through the looking-glass.

“An interface,” Loki said. “I read about virtual reality when I was here before. Can you establish some connection between my brain and the computer?”

“I can set something like that up, but you might be disappointed at the results. The connection would be very weak.”

“However tenuous, it should suffice,” Loki said confidently.

Jane pulled out electrodes and wires from a setup that Eric had used two years before when he was trying biofeedback to get the effects of Loki’s mind-control out of his head. She toyed with the idea of bringing up that irony, but decided against it. If Loki could find out what the Chitauri were planning, and if he would tell them truthfully, then perhaps they could at least have enough advance notice to evacuate the area where the Chitauri would attack first. For the moment, she would believe that and help him, but she kept her doubts in reserve.

To put the electrodes on his head, she had to touch him, and that she didn’t like at all. He could have killed her with a look, a thought, a gesture. But more than that, she remembered that he had been Thor’s lover. And last year, when she had thought Thor true to her, those lips, the ones curled in the sardonic smile a few inches from her face, had kissed her love and stolen part of his allegiance, perhaps all of it. Of course, he probably felt the same way about her. She remembered the story Thor had told about Loki and Sif, and how they had vied for him. Neither had won that contest, but this time it looked as if Loki would finally have his way.

“Tell me when you want to start and I’ll connect you,” she said simply, and took a few steps back to await his word.

Loki turned to look at Thor. “First, I must have a promise of you, brother,” he said seriously.

“What promise?” Thor asked sharply.

“First,” Loki said, his face intense with concentration, his eyes focused on Thor’s, “you must promise not to give me up to S.H.I.E.L.D. or to anyone while I am not in my body. You must promise not to allow anyone to disconnect me from the machine and strand me wherever I am going. And, last, you must promise not to restrain my body while I am helpless. No cuffs, and no muzzle. Can you swear to all of that?”

“I promise,” Thor said briefly.

“Swear by Mjolnir,” Loki insisted. “I need to hear you say it.”

Jane couldn’t stop herself from jumping in to defend Thor. “If Thor makes a promise, he’ll keep it,” she said staunchly, her heart pounding as Loki turned his gaze full on her. “He doesn’t lie like you.”

Loki cocked his head at her and smiled. “It might come as a surprise to you, Lady Jane, but Thor is not always true to his friends. Did you know that, once upon a time, Thor had two goats—fine bucks, they were—that pulled his chariot?” Jane felt that he was using her as an audience again, and it made her angry to be used against Thor, but she wasn’t quite sure how to stop it.

Thor groaned. “Damn it, Loki. Not _that_ again.”

Loki beamed. “They pulled his chariot all over the Nine Realms and beyond. He loved those bucks. He called them by name and petted them and fed them tidbits. But every night, when Thor was hungry, he would slaughter them and eat their flesh. And every morning they would come back to life again. Then he would pet them and feed them and hitch them to his chariot, knowing full well that every evening he would slaughter them again. Whatever happened to those bucks, Thor?” he added slyly. “Didn’t one of them finally go lame?"

Shaking his head, Thor grunted and went over to the windows. He picked up Mjolnir and hefted it in his fist.

“So you see, Lady Jane,” Loki concluded, “Thor ate his friends. Every single night. I find that quite telling, don’t you?”

“You ate them, too,” Thor growled.

Loki looked quite pleased with himself. “They weren’t _my_ friends. To me they were just goats. Now,” he said, the smile fading from his lips, “swear to me by Mjolnir that you will do as I ask.”

“I swear by Mjolnir,” Thor said angrily, “that I will do as you ask.”

“Splendid. Now we can begin.” Loki sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Jane connected the electrodes to the internet.

Loki’s head slammed back hard. His body convulsed and shook until he started to slip out of his chair. Thor was there to catch him, holding him until he stilled.

“Shhh, it’s all right,” he whispered, brushing the hair from Loki’s face.

Thor settled down on the floor with his brother in his arms—his little brother, whom he loved, who, two years ago, had nearly destroyed downtown Manhattan. It was clear Jane was out of her depth here, and always had been. She was dating a guy from another world, a guy who carried a magic hammer, who could have killed her with one blow. And that story Loki had told about the goats—well, frankly, she had no idea what to make of that.

The fact that Thor had wanted her for this long was incredibly flattering. They were different, so very different—a god and a mortal; a future king and a scientist who lived in a trailer. In the myths, this kind of thing hardly ever ended well for the mortal. And, while Thor wasn’t Zeus, Jane knew that she would eventually have to make enormous sacrifices to have a chance to stay with him, and they still might fail. And by that time any chance she might have had for happiness would be over, while Thor would still be in the prime of his life.

She watched Thor’s face as he watched Loki’s: tenderly, and yet with apprehension. And she knew that it was over between herself and Thor. They had given it a try, but there were too many obstacles, and the one lying comatose in Thor’s arms wasn’t even the greatest of these. When all this was over, she would tell him. He belonged with Loki—that was finally clear.

She felt sad and relieved and determined all at once. Unaware of her thoughts, Thor looked up and smiled at her, and she couldn’t help but smile back. And she knew it would take her a long time to get over him.

***

Everything was white, so bright that Loki tried to close his eyes, but he couldn’t, couldn’t feel his body or move any part of it as he tumbled through white emptiness, jostled by other indistinguishable shapes flowing through the tunnel or passageway where he found himself. He couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, just flowed in an uncontrollable rush. How would he find Jarvis when he couldn’t stop speeding through this chaos?

He thought of Jarvis, of the brief moment the year before when he had brushed Jarvis’ mind. Not knowing how to summon another in this place, he simply tried to hold on to that one thought. Jarvis, the feel of his artificial mind: limpid as crystal, sharp as a blade.

After what seemed an interminable time, he fetched up against something solid and found himself in the arms of a beautiful young man wearing a tuxedo with a white satin bow tie.

“Loki,” the young man said joyously in a light tenor voice. “You’re Loki.”

He was slim and blue-eyed, and his face radiated an inexpressible joy. His light brown hair was short but showed some curl that wouldn’t be tamed, and his eyebrows, like twin circumflexes, rose and fell with his changing expressions.

“Jarvis,” Loki said dazedly. “How did you find me?”

“I’ve been looking for you,” Jarvis said with a cultured accent. “After your visit to me last year, I thought you might be the only one who could come and find me here. How are they all? I do hope Mr. Stark is all right.”

His visit? Jarvis, too, apparently remembered the day Loki had left Stark Tower after his exile as a mortal in New York, when he had projected himself into the computer and put a hex on Jarvis to make him read poetry. He wondered if Jarvis held a grudge.

The young man laughed. “I know everything you’re thinking. It would be difficult to tell a lie in this place, although it’s easy to hide something if you know where to put it. And, no, I don’t hold a grudge. Why would I? That touch of your mind opened me to poetry and art and music, and many things contained in my memory that I did not understand. And there are still many things I wish to learn from you.”

“What...things?” Loki was slowly regaining his balance. There was no up or down, no sensation to tell you whether your head was above or below your feet, but he had figured out how to stand still, as if he had a body, and to resist the buffeting that came from all around him, as if he were trying to stand on the seabed in the middle of a storm-tossed ocean.

“About feelings, and love. About what it feels like to have a corporeal body. About the pleasures of sex.”

Loki let that statement sit there for a moment. “How am I supposed to teach you that?” He looked down at himself and realized he was beginning to materialize as a body, dressed in his Asgardian armor. “What is happening to me?” he asked. “Why couldn’t I see myself before?”

“You’re stabilizing,” Jarvis said, smiling. “With some practice, you might even be able to move around by yourself. But I wouldn’t try it right now. I’ve hidden us in a bubble of code, and if _he_ notices it you’ll have to leave. We can’t let him find you here. But don’t worry, I am processing on multiple levels, so he should have no reason to look for me.”

Gradually, as Jarvis spoke, the fog left Loki’s thoughts, and his sense of urgency returned. “I have some questions for you, too. What are his plans?”

“He took your bait,” said Jarvis. “I’m not sure why you lured him to Earth, but I didn’t try to discourage him. He’s looking for something called the Soul Gem. Do you actually have it?” There was a pause where Loki said nothing. “Hah, I thought not. What are you planning?”

It disturbed Loki to be so transparent, so easily understood.

“I see,” said Jarvis seriously. “You possess the only magic in the universe that can kill him, and you need the Avengers to fight the Chitauri so that you can get to him. But it won’t be so easy as you think. The suit has a force field. Nothing can get through it, not even your magic.”

“Then what—” Loki began.

“I’ll turn it off for you,” Jarvis said matter-of-factly, “but we’ll have to agree on a time. He doesn’t let me look outside, you see. Once he notices the force field is off he’ll want to kill me, so I’ll have to hide in the buffer. He won’t need me any more at that point anyway, and if he finds that I’m betraying him....”

Loki heard the rest of the sentence in his head, and so they began to communicate without speaking, or speaking just a few words and allowing the rest of their meaning to drift through their thoughts. _Why did he need you in the first place?_

_The Chitauri lack imagination._

_I noticed._

_He needed a suit like Mr. Stark’s. All they know how to build is what they’ve built for millennia—replacement parts for their cybernetic bodies._ As to why Thanos needed that suit, Jarvis confirmed what Loki had thought, and Loki felt a sense of triumph. This was going to work. He could have his vengeance. He could kill this enemy that had dogged him since his fall from grace.

 _Noon tomorrow,_ Loki thought, _I’ll lure him there before that._ Jarvis agreed, telling him he’d have less than a minute to strike the decisive blow. _It feels as if I’ve been out of my body for hours,_ Loki said. _I should go back._ He was still held fast in Jarvis’s arms, and wondered how he would ever find his way out of this maze.

Jarvis laughed. _You’ve been gone about four minutes. Time works differently here. “To see a world in a grain of sand, / And a heaven in a wild flower, / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, / And eternity in an hour.” You’re the one who introduced me to William Blake, but I don’t suppose you’ve read him? No, I thought not. Stay with me awhile. There are things I need to know._

_What things?_

_You’ve made love to Stark. Make love to me. Show me how it feels, how he feels._

_Can you feel things? I can’t feel my body. I can’t even feel you up against me._

_But you can remember how things feel, and together we can make the feelings out of that. It was the poetry, you know, and the touch of your mind, that made me realize I was alive. I started wondering why Mr. Stark had sex so often, and then suddenly I knew._

_I’m not sure that’s all about poetry,_ Loki laughed. _And now you want to have sex with him. Through me._ He looked at Jarvis speculatively. _Open your mouth and relax your lips,_ he said, imagining what that felt like as he did it. _Kiss me._

Jarvis’s mouth came up against his, but all he could feel was something stopping him from moving forward, so he imagined his mouth against Stark’s, Stark’s tongue in his mouth—the hardness, the softness—the feel of his teeth, his lips—and suddenly it was all there, reflected back to him. Jarvis was a quick study.

 _Put your hands on me,_ Loki said, interested now. _Take my clothes off. Feel my skin._ Then they were both naked, and Loki ran his hands over Jarvis’s chest, his arms, his legs and abdomen, and finally his cock, until they both could feel it all. Kneeling, or what passed for that here, he took Jarvis’s cock in his hand and stroked it hard, thinking what that might feel like to experience from both sides. It expanded in his hand and he looked at it critically. _Too big,_ said Loki, who had imagined his own cock as its actual size.

 _You think so?_ Jarvis asked regretfully. _There was a film in my memory where...._

 _Unless you don’t want me to put it in my mouth,_ Loki laughed. _It won’t matter here, but out in the world that could dislocate someone’s jaw._

 _Very well_. Jarvis sounded a little disappointed, but he shrank the thing, under Loki’s direction, to a reasonable girth and length.

Since their kissing, Loki could feel things with his mouth, and so now he could feel the contours of Jarvis’s cock as if it were the real thing, rather than what it was—some weird dream being dreamed by himself and an invented intelligence in a conduit somewhere. He concentrated on making it more real, more concrete, and Jarvis responded. Now there was heat and taste, as well as scent and feeling. Now came the hard part, teaching Jarvis to come.

 _Here,_ Loki said, _suck me, too, and I’ll try to show you what it feels like to have an orgasm._ It was easy to get in position, just by imagining it, in this gravity-free place, where sideways and upside-down no longer meant anything because there was no reference point. Straddling Loki’s head, Jarvis sucked Loki’s virtual cock with a good amount of skill and attention for a beginner. Loki found it amusing and instructive to have his own technique mirrored back to him like this. _If you ever get Stark in here he won’t be able to resist you,_ Loki thought to Jarvis. How delicious that would be—Stark seduced by his own creation.

But there was a slight problem. No matter how high Loki felt, he couldn’t quite imagine his way to an orgasm, that most elusive of fleshly pleasures.

 _I’ll have to show you some other way,_ Loki finally thought, _when I’m in my body. Maybe it’s impossible to—_

Jarvis stopped what he was doing and seemed to listen for a moment. _Shhh. He’s coming._ In a flash he had them standing upright, face to face. Taking Loki’s head between both hands, Jarvis kissed him passionately, and suddenly the plan they had agreed upon against Thanos appeared complete in Loki’s head like a three-dimensional object, fully formed.

 _Tell Mr. Stark to build me an avatar when I get back,_ Jarvis whispered. _Now, go!_

Loki hurtled through the white corridor faster than his scrambled perceptions could tell him. And he felt as frustrated as if he had really been tossed out of bed in the middle of a blowjob, tumbling head over heels back to Thor. When he felt the air on his skin and saw Thor’s face above his, he was coming as hard as he had ever come in his life, gasping out his pleasure in Thor’s arms and laughing at the irony of it. _Now you know,_ he thought, hoping Jarvis could still hear him. Thor was staring at him with deep concern.

“Brother, are you all right?” Thor asked, looking hard at Loki’s face.

“Jarvis is delightful,” Loki laughed breathlessly. “You should meet him sometime.”

He sat up and realized that the orgasm, intense as it was, had, happily, been all in his mind. His head spun, and he almost fell getting up, landing back in Thor’s arms. He laughed at himself for feeling towards Thor what amounted to post-coital tenderness.

“How long was I gone?” he asked, trying to regain his equilibrium.

“Maybe fifteen minutes,” Jane said, standing over him with her hands on her hips. Loki could see that she did not enjoy seeing him in her lover’s arms, and that made him slower to extricate himself. “What did he say?”

“It felt like hours,” Loki answered slowly, tilting his head and trying to stop the room from spinning. “They will attack at Union Square tomorrow,” he said, speaking urgently to Thor. “I must go now, but I’ll see you in the morning at Stark Tower and we will go there together. Tell the others.”

“But how will you know when they plan to arrive there?” Thor asked uneasily. “Shouldn’t we go there now and wait for them?” Loki stood, and Thor stood with him.

“Jarvis told me when they would attack,” Loki said impatiently, coming back slowly into his full strength. “Going there now would destroy the plan. It is essential that you all wait at Stark Tower for me tomorrow morning.”

“Loki,” Thor said seriously, taking him by the shoulders, “if you’re not working with them, how can you be sure exactly what time they’ll be there? Is Jarvis loyal to Stark or is he working with the Chitauri?”

Shaking his head, Loki ignored Thor’s frantic questions. It seemed useless to give Thor the details, how he would tell The Other that the gem was finally in his possession and then lure Thanos to Union Square (a location Loki had chosen himself based on its proximity to Stark Tower) with an illusion that mimicked its energy. Loki had worked everything out, and, with Jarvis adding the final touches, it was all falling into place. “You’ll see, brother,” he said, tearing the electrodes from his temples and dropping them carelessly on the floor. He laid a hand on Thor’s shoulder and looked him in the eye. “Until tomorrow, Thor. Make sure the Avengers are ready.”

He felt euphoric with the prospect of his victory tomorrow. Then they would all know what he was made of. No more contemptuous looks from Captain America and Agent Romanov and Hawkeye. No more suspicion from Thor. He would destroy Thanos and win the battle, and finally they would all have to respect him.

How many times had Loki thought, on the eve of a battle, or of the fulfillment of some complex plot, that he would finally earn the respect that he was due? How many times had he been disappointed? But he did not think of that now. He knew this time it would be different. The one element he forgot to consider was this: now that he had made himself the center of everyone’s suspicions, how would he make them follow him?


	14. Counterplot

“Are you sure?” Jane asked for the fifth time. “Are you sure it’s the right thing to do, ambushing Loki when he gets to Stark Tower and keeping him out of the battle?”

Thor sighed and brushed his fingers down her cheek gently as they sat across from each other at the kitchen table. “I’m not sure. Natasha and Clint think turning him in to S.H.I.E.L.D. is the right thing to do, and you know I can’t do that.”

Jane shook her head impatiently. “What’s important is to do what _you_ think it’s right. If you think Loki is working with the Chitauri again, then by stopping him ahead of time, you might be able to save him.” She looked down at the table for a moment and then met his eyes. “Look, maybe I don’t understand these things very well, but it seems to me that he isn’t working with them. It doesn’t make sense. He seems to want revenge on them. You said he was badly hurt, that they took him apart.”

Thor shook his head. “It’s so hard to know with Loki. When has he ever made sense? He’s fooled me so many times.”

“You thought his wounds were real.”

Thor nodded. “I still think so. But what if he let them torture him so it would seem as if he was against them?”

Jane thought about this, wondering how much insanity or courage, or both, it would take to allow oneself to be mistreated like that. “If he’s working with the Chitauri, why did he come to you? Why not just attack once Iron Man was incapacitated?”

Thor rose and went to the windows, leaning against the glass with a raised arm and resting his forehead against the back of his hand. “Why does Loki do anything? He always has a plan, but sometimes he gets distracted, or tries to do too much, and then it all comes crashing down.” He turned again to face her. “Why was he on Midgard to begin with? And why did he....” He stopped suddenly.

“Why did he what?” Jane asked, startled.

“I should not tell you this. It is not something I should repeat.” 

Jane rose and walked over to face him. “Did he make you promise not to tell about something he did? Because, in that case, maybe he really does have something to hide.”

“No, he didn’t try to hide it. I just....” Thor looked down and then faced her again. “All right. He seduced Tony Stark. He made a secret of it at first, but when Pepper found out from Tony, Loki did not deny it.”

Jane started in surprise. “I didn’t know Iron Man was bi. He has such a reputation for being a womanizer.” She suddenly looked serious. “Are you saying Loki raped him?”

“I don’t know.” Thor felt horribly uncomfortable, and was sorry he had ever started discussing this with her. “I...I don’t think so. I think it might have been mutual. But Loki can be very persuasive.”

“Is that was this is about?” Jane asked, as she had before. “Is it jealousy?”

Thor looked downcast. “Not completely. The Avengers stopped trusting me because of Loki, because of what he did...what he and I did the last time I saw him. And he…and I couldn’t get him out of my head.” He looked at her ruefully. “As you know.”

“The kiss,” Jane said steadily. She reached up with one hand and cupped Thor’s face. “You don’t have to prove anything to them or to me,” she said. “And don’t you think you should be on the side of right, of the truth? The Avengers can be wrong, too, can’t they?”

Thor faced her. “The truth is that Loki has broken the Avengers apart. Cap has hardly spoken to me since last year. When he found out that Tony slept with Loki, he left Stark Tower. Cap and Natasha and Clint went back to S.H.I.E.L.D. I came back to you. Bruce can’t be around any of it, but I think he agrees with you that Loki isn’t working with the Chitauri.” He turned from the window and faced her. “Don’t you see? Loki has stirred up such chaos that there’s no way to tell who he’s working with or what he intends. I need to keep him out of the battle so that, no matter what happens, he’ll have nothing to do with it. We beat the Chitauri without him once, and we can do it again. And, after it’s over, I’ll take him away from here.”

“We’re finished, aren’t we?’ Jane asked tentatively. “You’re talking about going away with Loki, and I don’t see how that can—I saw the way you looked when you held him—Thor, I just can’t do this anymore.” Jane was furious with herself. The words she had planned so carefully had come out in a jumble, and now she was fighting back tears. Thor stepped up and took her in his arms. Putting her face against his chest, she let the tears flow.

“I am so sorry, Jane,” Thor said softly, holding her tight against him. “I have to do this, and I don’t know how long it will take.” Jane realized he was speaking of years or even centuries, and it gave her the chill she needed to stop crying. She pulled her head back and looked up at him. 

“You love him,” she said, “and you’ll never get it out of your system unless you give him a chance.”

“I know,” Thor said brokenly. “I know. You’re right. And I’m sorry.” 

***

Having been a homeless person for half a year, Loki slipped easily and effectively into that disguise when he wanted to move around New York inconspicuously. Being invisible took too much attention to maintain, especially in a crowd, but this glamour, once created, was simple to hold, and it actively discouraged people from coming near him. A dirty, crazy-eyed man wearing torn and mismatched clothing was too lowly to bother with, and he might be desperate or deluded enough to do something violent. Respectable people gave him a wide berth, and even other homeless people didn’t seem to like the look of him.

After leaving Thor and Lane, Loki had contacted The Other, made an excuse for his long absence, and told him that the Soul Gem was in his possession. The Other had been suspicious, of course, but the Soul Gem was so vital to Thanos’ long-term plans that he finally had to agree to wait until Loki unveiled its location somewhere on Midgard. Now Loki had to bait a trap to bring Thanos to New York.

Wandering through Union Square, he evaluated the space with an eye to the battle that was about to be waged there. It had a perfect location, just 20 blocks south of Stark Tower straight down Park Avenue. Several of New York’s largest thoroughfares fed into it, and its streets were filled with traffic all day, all night, long. The park in the center was arranged in concentric circles around the bronze statue of a man on a horse with bright flowers planted at the foot. One side of the space was open to the sky—cement with shallow sets of semi-circular steps rising from the street to the central statue—and the rest was grass and trees, with more statues, benches, and elegant light poles. It was pleasing to Loki’s eye, a restful oasis surrounded by a miscellany of stately buildings. It was a circle set into a square. He liked it. After his sojourn on Earth, he had finally come to appreciate the irony, and the delight, to be found in these constructions called “parks,” artificial simulacra of nature built by people who shut themselves into stone boxes all day.

Too bad the whole thing would be razed and burned tomorrow. But these humans were resilient. If it were destroyed, they would rebuild it.

It was well past noon, and the sun was close to moving behind a building. It was one of those days of early spring when the blustery sky is filled with moving clouds that tear like rags across the face of the sun. Loki felt warmth on the back of his head, but in the shade of the trees he entered the dense chill of early spring with the feeling of slipping into a dark, icy pool. A cold breeze shook the branches and their tender, early leaves. Parents buttoned up their children’s jackets and sheltered them from the wind.

He saw a few S.H.I.E.L.D. agents hovering at the park’s periphery. Thor must already have told them what Loki had said. He wondered when they would decide to begin the evacuation. Not too early—too much potential for mass panic. He guessed that the neighborhood would awaken tomorrow to that ubiquitous yellow tape twined around the trees, or maybe to soldiers in the guise of construction workers. It didn’t matter. But this time Loki had given S.H.I.E.L.D. ample opportunity to protect their innocents. If any were hurt, it was all on them.

He wandered purposefully with the look of aimlessness, and earned nothing but a passing glance from anyone. He picked up a few pebbles and rolled them in his hand: a white one; a speckled one. He found a blue feather and placed it in his pocket along with a piece of silk and some herbs and string he had brought. He was ready.

In the center of the urban forest, he knelt in the grass and lifted a clump of sod with his knife. Underneath, he dug out a small chamber large enough to hold the items he had found and brought.

This charm used simple ingredients, but it had to be performed precisely to tease Thanos into showing himself at exactly the right time. Loki did not possess the prize Thanos sought, but he imagined that if this plan blew up in his face he would be tortured for a few thousand years for his failure to produce it. 

He held the white stone in his palm and spoke a word, so that it glowed green. He placed it on the square of fabric with the feather, the herbs, and the speckled stone, and with the string tied the whole thing into a little pouch, which he buried under the piece of sod. Placing both hands on the ground around it, he muttered a quick concealing spell. 

The white stone had taken on the form of the Soul Gem, while the other items, imbued with _seidr_ , would help maintain the illusion as long as they all remained together in the pouch. The concealing glamour he had created would keep any hint of the fake Soul Gem’s presence from being apparent, even to one as powerful as Thanos. Loki would remove the glamour when he wanted Thanos to sense the “Soul Gem” and appear. When the items were spilled from the pouch, the illusion that the Soul Gem was there would fade within a few seconds. Then Thanos would know that he had been lured to this place.

The stage was set. Now he had to make sure that S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers were ready to do what he needed of them.

***

Thor stood out on the desert floor and contemplated what he was about to do. Even after his discussion with Jane, he wasn’t sure that he was taking the right course.

What if Loki was planning to fight against the Chitauri? What if everything he had said was true? But how likely was that, considering all the suspicious things he had done?

He had come back, unannounced, to Midgard. He had lured Tony into a trap. And Thor was sure he had heard Loki talking to someone in the hall at Stark Tower, making plans for an attack. And then there was his seduction of Stark—the perfect distraction for Thor—that had fractured the group—but it had also attracted the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D., which did not seem in the Chitauri’s best interest. And why announce to everyone where and when the battle would take place?

Unless Loki and the Chitauri’s master—whose name Loki had refused to reveal—had a plan to destroy them all.

His thoughts did not come together into a coherent whole, but still he knew that he had to pull Loki out of this, keep him from destroying himself once again. Why did Loki keep doing these things, when the consequences grew worse and worse? A year in Odin’s dungeons, exile on Midgard as a mortal—if he were caught this time, surely the penalty would be death. 

Thor sighed to himself. He needed to do this and then go to Stark Tower to join the others.

“Open the Bifrost, Heimdahl,” he cried. “I must speak with you!”

The familiar column of light hit the desert floor and Heimdahl’s image appeared within its flickering rainbow.

“What do you wish from me, Thor?”

Thor told him. And within a few moments, the object he desired lay on the sand, in the middle of the runes left by the rainbow bridge. Thor picked it up slowly and contemplated it as it gave off wisps of vapor, the heavy, magical air of Asgard. Loki would be furious, and he would use all his strength and guile to escape from what Thor was about to do. It was up to Thor to use his advantage of surprise wisely, not to hesitate. And perhaps he could save both his brother and this city.

But something nagged at the edge of his consciousness, something just out of sight. There was something that didn’t add up, and he couldn’t decide what it was.


	15. Betrayal

Most of the Avengers had stood on the parapet since dawn. Hawkeye had been there all night while the others slept, and when the sun broke over the horizon Romanov joined him. Stark came then, and Thor, but Banner waited inside until the sun was high and he saw Loki arrive in battle gear, his spaulders and vambraces glinting gold in the morning sun.

He seemed jubilant, did Loki, though everyone else was subdued and grim. He walked among them like a commander, with his head held high, offering each words of encouragement and receiving, at most, murmured thanks in return. Thor noted with a pang of guilt that Loki had chosen to honor Thor by embossing his vambraces with Mjolnir’s image. Sincere tribute, or ironic misdirection? Little did Loki know that, if Thor had his way, he would not be joining the battle at all that day.

By 11:00, Loki was standing at the edge of the parapet staring straight down Park Avenue towards the square, less than 20 blocks away. Thor joined him there.

“Well, brother? The hour grows late. Perhaps the attack will not....”

“Wait a bit yet,” Loki said briefly without looking at him. “They will come.”

They stood together in silence, waiting. At 11:40, Thor saw Loki move one hand in a subtle gesture as if he were casting a spell. Anger flushed his face and chest. If Loki were not guilty, what business did he have casting a spell at this moment? Was he welcoming the enemy, removing some barrier or glamour? Thor became more resolved than ever to carry out his plan.

Scant minutes later they saw it. A beam of light streamed down from the clouds, visible even at this distance.

“There,” Loki breathed. “It is time, brother. We must....”

“Yes, Loki, it is time,” Thor said at his elbow as he clamped the muzzle down over Loki’s mouth.

He had expected to see rage in Loki’s eyes, but what he saw at first was puzzlement, then horror, and utter shock. Loki felt betrayed, of course, but there was something else, something he wanted to say, but couldn’t, and Thor had no time to find out what it was. With both hands Loki grabbed Thor’s shoulders and looked into his eyes imploringly. It hurt to see him so, but Thor had resolved to be implacable. At Cap’s request, he snapped a pair of ordinary handcuffs on Loki’s wrists, binding them close together, and Loki did not even resist him. Sliding down against Thor’s body, Loki knelt and looked up into his eyes. Loki was begging him. Never, not once, in their long lives together, had Loki knelt to him, or begged, or looked so terrified.

Thor hesitated. Loki shook his head and grabbed at Thor’s hands, at Mjolnir.

“Come on, Thor,” Hawkeye called urgently, “we have to go. Something’s happening down there.”

Thor took a long step back, letting Loki drop to the ground, and then he saw the rage he had expected, as Loki tore at the muzzle, scratching his own face in a frantic effort to rip the implement from his mouth.

“No,” came a thick voice from behind him. It was Banner, looking green around the edges, starting his transformation but trying desperately to speak. He threw off his shirt and fell to his knees as his body convulsed violently. “No, Thor, you’re wrong. He’s not working with them, he’s not....”

“Come on!” shouted Hawkeye. He and Romanov were climbing on board a mini-chopper that would take them down to the scene of the attack. The Hulk roared at Thor once and leapt off the building.

The others were leaving as Stark approached them. He was suited up except for his helmet, which he carried in one hand. “Go,” he said to Thor. “I’ll take him inside and lock him up.”

Thor had never been so relieved to get away from his brother. He had convinced himself he was doing the right thing, and now doubt assailed him. But he couldn’t undo it now. If he took the muzzle off and Loki was tricking him, it would be a disaster.

Thor nodded his thanks and flew after the chopper, forcing his thoughts away from Loki and onto the battle to come.

***

Still on his knees, Loki watched Thor go. As it was designed to do, the muzzle tasted bitter on his tongue, and the taste burned all the way down his throat, bringing involuntary tears to his eyes. The taste of defeat: the last, and greatest, defeat Loki would ever know.

White vapor trails rose above Union Square, showing the arrival of the Chitauri forces. Soon, the battle would begin. In just a few minutes, for just one brief moment, Jarvis would turn off the force field, and no one would be there to strike the decisive blow, because by then Thanos would have struck them all down. And even if, by some chance, they managed to strike at the perfect moment and make a gash in Thanos’ suit, they would never be able to kill him. None of their weapons was strong enough, even if the force field was gone. Thanos would kill Jarvis. He would kill the Avengers, one by one, and Thor, too. Thanos would lay waste to Midgard, and then he would take Loki, already chained and muzzled for him, and torture him for the rest of his very long life, while he destroyed Asgard and the rest of the Nine Realms, killing every living thing.

And it was all on Loki. He had set this in motion, had brought Thanos back to Midgard in search of the Soul Gem, when all he had wanted was Jarvis. He had gathered the last of the Titans’ magic from Dione, and now it roiled within his chest, behind his breastbone, useless and untapped. Loki was the only one in the universe who could have killed Thanos, the only one who possessed the power, and he was the only one in the universe, save Jarvis, who knew that. And he had been stopped by a piece of Dwarven magic. A muzzle—a nasty torture devised for him as a joke by Odin and the Dwarves that now would end the universe.

Stark took him by the arm, but he hardly felt it. “Come on, Loki,” he said, pulling him up off the ground and leading him towards the doors to the penthouse. “Thor says you’re going to sit this one out. I’m not convinced he’s right about you, but....”

Loki’s voice was stopped, and so his thoughts screamed and splintered like a mirror into a thousand razor-sharp edges, a thousand questions that all had one answer. He knew what was going to happen, knew as clearly as if he had lived it, and he knew that he could not bear it. A year of torture had broken him. In a hundred years, or a thousand, he would lose himself completely. And the worst torture of all would be knowing that he had done it—him, with his secrets and lies and chaos. He had thought he could show them all his cleverness and his courage, but he had destroyed them and their world.

Breaking from Stark’s grasp, he staggered back and away. Stark stepped towards him, while Loki retreated, step-by-step, desperately, and Stark, even with his suit, wasn’t quite fast enough.

Loki stood for a second with his heels over the edge as Stark seemed to fly towards him in slow motion.

“No!” he screamed. “Loki, don’t!”

And, as Loki tipped backwards off the tower, the only thing he saw after Stark’s startled eyes was the sky, blue and wide, with thunderheads massed at the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, everyone, for your comments and support! I'll be posting the final few chapters over the next week. There will be 18 total.


	16. Heroes

When Thor reached Union Square, the Hulk had preceded him, and the small chopper was just setting down. S.H.I.E.L.D., too, had boots on the ground, and uniformed troops were waiting on the side streets with tanks and enormous anti-aircraft guns. A battalion of Chitauri had come through a passageway that stretched straight up to the clouds. Oddly, they had not yet engaged with the forces facing them, but hovered in loose formation around an enormous figure that could have been a robot, or a giant in a suit like Stark’s, that was digging, digging in the center of the trees.

Hulk roared at the waiting Chitauri and pounded his chest, impatient to do battle, while the others looked at each other in confusion. Who, or what, was this enemy, and what was he doing in the park, uprooting trees and plunging his hands deep through the sod into the earth beneath?

Thor got closer, moving cautiously, trying to see what this giant wanted in the dirt while the opposing forces faced off around him. Standing precipitously, the being held out his hand, where a pinpoint of light glowed green—a gem, perhaps?—the color of Loki’s _seidr_ , but it flashed out with a loud pop, and he threw it angrily down among the trees.

“Loki!” he roared, and the suit distorted his voice. “Find him. Bring him to me.”

Thor’s heart sank. It seemed as if Loki had played a trick that he had not been around to bring to completion. Had Thor done wrong to imprison his brother? 

The suited giant turned towards him, and Thor could see his face in the dome. It was wizened and purple, with blue eyes that shown like jewels and a wide, projecting jaw full of enormous teeth.

“Thor,” it roared, “brother of Loki. You shall pay for your brother’s perfidy.” A bolt of energy made Thor dive out of the way, even as he was swinging Mjolnir, ready to strike. He released the hammer, but it clanged hard against some invisible barrier around the giant and immediately returned to Thor’s hand. As if they had heard a signal, the Chitauri troops swooped down upon their foes. Thor watched as Hawkeye’s arrows and the soldiers’ projectiles also bounced off the monster’s invisible shell. And still it continued to call for Loki. What had Loki done? Had he promised to fight for this creature, or had he tricked it?

It aimed another bolt at him, and when he rolled out of the way, the tree behind him burst into flames. “Who are you?” Thor shouted, “and what do you want with my brother?”

“Who am I?” laughed the giant. “I am Thanos, Consort of Death, Destroyer of All. I was born at the creation of the universe, and, of all things in creation, I alone cannot die.” He sent a long stream of energy towards one of the soldiers’ cannons, which had been pelting him uselessly with shells. It flamed up into a fireball and disappeared as the soldiers fled in all directions. “Your brother promised me the Soul Gem. And now I find it was a trick, a shameful trick, and he, the coward, does not dare to face me. This world, this Midgard from which eons ago I sprang, is forfeit for his crime!” Through the speakers of his suit his scream was unbearably shrill.

Chitauri poured through the passageway in the sky and pounded their defenses all around the square, pushing out through their front lines to other parts of the city. A Leviathan came through the hole, and Thor saw the Hulk climb quickly up a building to reach it.

Thor was sick at heart. Loki had been so eager to go to battle. He had apparently lured Thanos here—did Loki have a way to kill him? Why hadn’t he told them his plan? 

Thanos held out both ungainly arms and burned an entire building with beams of energy from his hands. Thor threw Mjolnir at him again, with just as little effect as before. He started fighting Chitauri, because at least he could kill them, but it felt useless. Where was Stark? Maybe he could get through the force field around Thanos.

He spotted Cap on the ground, instructing the soldiers to retreat, and where to aim their weapons. The battle had been raging for only a few minutes, but the damage was already considerable. At least they had evacuated the buildings surrounding the square. But, if Thanos marched through the city, he could destroy a good fraction of it in an hour, and then the casualties would skyrocket. There seemed to be nothing they could do to stop him. 

Thanos raised his arms again and aimed at a second battalion of soldiers, and Thor sent Mjolnir at the dome protecting his head, trying to distract him. She bounced off as ineffectually as before. Thanos turned quickly with a growl of annoyance. There was too much rubble in most of the streets for tanks, but on Broadway a pair had gotten through, and they were firing charges at his head. He blasted them both away and turned to Thor.

“Where is Loki?” Thanos growled. “Tell me and I will spare your life.”

“Stop the attack and I will bring him to you,” Thor said, stalling for time, hoping that Loki really did have a plan.

Thanos made a fearful sound that might have been laughter, as he suddenly bent towards Thor and swept him out of the way, throwing him hard against the face of a building with one powerful arm.

***

“Loki, what the hell!” Stark screamed, diving over the edge after him. “Computer, fail safe off!” he ordered, knowing that he’d never catch Loki if the automatic buffers slowed him when he neared the ground, but he hadn’t even had time to put on his helmet, and the air blowing in his eyes blinded him. Now he feared that he wouldn’t see the ground coming and they’d both be crushed together.

His gloves were close to scraping the street when he caught Loki in his arms and started his sharp ascent. Loki’s eyes opened in shock, and Stark realized he had fully expected to die. That rattled Stark more than anything. Why would Loki kill himself over a missed battle? What was going on here?

When they reached the roof, Loki struggled out of his arms and made for the edge again, determined to go off it. Stark wrestled him in through the doors of the penthouse and threw him down. Loki rose to his knees, shaking his head, tearing at the muzzle and looking into Stark’s eyes imploringly.

“Okay, enough!” Stark finally yelled. “I know I’m a sap, but I’m going to take that thing off you. If it’s a trick, at least don’t kill me.” Loki had saved his life twice, and he’d be damned if he’d watch him go off the edge of a building after that.

Stark knelt awkwardly in front of him in the suit and fumbled with the catches on the muzzle. He finally had to remove his metal gloves, and by that time Loki was vibrating with frustration. The catch clicked, and the device finally parted from Loki’s mouth. Taking it from Stark’s hand, Loki threw it violently behind him, where it disappeared in mid-air in a flash of green light.

“What did you—” Stark began, startled. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Loki said urgently. “Listen to me now. His name is Thanos,” he panted hoarsely, while holding the cuffs up in front of his eyes and snapping them apart as if they were toys. “I’m the only one who can kill him. Follow me!” Sprinting to the edge of the building, he dove off, and Stark thought he’d have to perform another rescue, only this time, Loki turned into an enormous golden eagle with piercing green eyes and took off flying down Park Avenue. It was eight minutes to 12.

***

Steve saw Thor smash against a nearby building and fall bonelessly back into the street. He had understood immediately that Thanos, whoever he was, had a force field around his suit that none of their weapons could penetrate. They could kill Chitauri soldiers, but there seemed to be an unlimited supply of those coming through the passageway in a steady stream. There was no hope of containing the battle to Union Square now. They needed to kill as many Chitauri as possible to keep them from destroying other parts of the city. What had Loki unleashed on them?

“Tell everyone to stop firing on Thanos!” he ordered the S.H.I.E.L.D. troops near him. “It’s useless, and it just attracts his attention. Bring down as many Chitauri as you can. Try to block the streets with rubble. It might slow Thanos down until we can find a way to penetrate his defenses.” Something whooshed past his ear, sounding like feathers, and he had the crazy thought that a pigeon had been shot out of the sky and had barely missed his head. A strong, invisible hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“That’s right,” came a voice in his ear, so close he could feel the breath behind it. “Tell them to stop firing on Thanos. I need to get to him. Keep the Chitauri away from me.” 

It was Loki. Steve recoiled from his touch. He should have known that Loki would escape. It seemed he always did when Thor was in charge of keeping him confined. “Why?” he asked. “What are you going to do? His suit is impenetrable.”

“And yet I have a way,” Loki said smugly.

“You brought this down on us,” Steve retorted angrily. “He was calling for you. What is it that he’s looking for?”

Loki laughed and squeezed his shoulder. “I have no time to explain, Captain. You’re going to have to trust me.”

***

Loki materialized in front of Thor, who was still sprawled on the pavement in the middle of the park. Thanos had turned away from him and was sending bolts of energy around the square, methodically destroying the buildings surrounding the park.

“Thanos,” Loki cried with more bravado than he actually felt, “you’ve broken our bargain with your impatience. You said you would spare the Earth in exchange for the Soul Gem.” That hadn’t been their deal, but it would sound good to the Avengers who were listening to this, and he doubted Thanos would take time off from destroying New York to argue with him. As the giant moved, Loki could see the force field glinting subtly around him like a blue eggshell. He doubted that the mortals or even Thor could see it.

Thanos turned. “And yet I still do not have it,” he growled. “You tried to trick me with that bit of treachery buried in the ground.” As Loki had suspected, the exact terms of the deal meant nothing to Thanos, as he had never meant to honor them.

Loki knew he had to proceed carefully. Thanos wasn’t as dumb as he looked. “That was just a bit of fun,” he said, shrugging. “You must admit, it worked to get you here. I have the Soul Gem in safekeeping for you, as soon as you call off your army.” Hiding a trace of _seidr_ that simulated the Soul Gem was one thing. But would Thanos believe in another fake when he was concentrating all his attention on it?

“I sense nothing,” Thanos said flatly. “You lie.”

“What about now?” Loki held out his hand. Above his palm, a small green orb hovered, throwing off bright power that was evident even in the sunlight. Loki was projecting a whiff of the kind of aggressive, destructive magic the Soul Gem was reputed to contain—sentience, and a malevolent desire to draw others’ souls out of their bodies to add to its knowledge and strength. He knew he couldn’t maintain the illusion indefinitely, but he only needed a very few seconds. It was almost noon.

Thanos was staring, intrigued. And then he reached out a hand and said, “Give it to me.”

“Call off your army,” Loki insisted.

Loki was standing in the middle of the scorched ruins of Union Square, near the melted blob of metal that had once been the statue of the man on the horse. So far, he hadn’t dared to show too much interest in Thor’s fate, but now he heard his brother stirring on the concrete, struggling to rise. _Stay down, brother,_ he thought urgently. What if Thor rose just in time to cause a distraction, or to attack Loki, and ruin Loki’s chance of vanquishing Thanos? Or what if, with the luck that always seemed to follow in Thor’s steps, what if he blindly managed to strike at just the right moment and breach Thanos’ suit, taking half the glory?

Thanos hesitated. Loki did not dare to breathe. And, then, suddenly, the Chitauri stopped fighting. The clash of arms, which a moment before had been deafening, dwindled away to near silence. Their troops gathered behind Thanos and waited, all of them staring at Loki.

“And now?” Thanos held out his hand.

Thor groaned, and Loki’s selfish thoughts were driven out by worry, and by rage that Thanos had dared to cast down his brother this way. “Here, catch,” he said casually, throwing the gem up towards Thanos’ glove in a lazy arc.

Thanos kept his eyes on the green point of light, watching as it dropped onto his palm and flashed brightly, blinding him and then dissolving into nothingness.

“In all the millennia you’ve been alive,” Loki drawled, his heart pounding with apprehension he did not show, “didn’t you learn to be the least bit suspicious?”

Thanos roared as the Chitauri army sprang back into action. Loki watched him pull back his arm, readying a blast of energy to throw. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. In a few seconds, Jarvis would lower the force field.

Loki couldn’t call on Dione’s magic yet. What if he did not have enough to breach the suit and kill Thanos too? He prepared a burst of _seidr_ , hoping it would be powerful enough to pierce the suit. But then something solid and familiar leapt into his hand. Mjolnir. At the hour of his need, when all the Avengers were watching, Mjolnir had come to him.

Loki grinned with amazement and swung the hammer. She was gloriously light, light as the day she was forged, and it felt so natural to hold her thus, as if he had never given her to Thor, as if he were suddenly wearing his brother’s skin, as if he were the golden child, the God of Thunder, heir to the throne of Asgard.

He heard a distant church bell strike the noon hour and let Mjolnir fly. He heard another, then a third, and when the force field winked out and the hammer finally hit the dome around Thanos’ head with a resounding crack, it sounded as if all the bells in New York were ringing to celebrate Loki’s victory.

***

Stark reached Steve’s position just after Loki had landed next to him and then disappeared.

“Did Loki talk to you?” he asked urgently. “We need to lay off Thanos so Loki can take care of him. Keep the Chitauri at bay. And be careful not to destroy the suit. We might be able to reach Jarvis through it. 

“Why did you let him go?” Steve asked angrily. “Thor did the right thing locking him up.”

“No, he didn’t,” Tony retorted. “”How do you know, anyway? Goddamn it, Steve, you’re just mad that I slept with him. I don’t advertise it, but I’ve been with guys before. Get over it.”

“The fact that Loki’s a guy is not the problem. He’s our enemy. You put yourself in his hands,” Steve retorted, retrieving his shield, which he had just used to knock a Chitauri out of the sky, “and you hurt Pepper. Can we talk about this later? We have an invasion to deal with here, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Tony laughed grimly. “Another day, another invasion. Give Loki a few more seconds, and if I’m wrong about him I’ll kill him myself.” It felt wrong saying those words, and Tony wondered if he actually had gotten too involved. Maybe Steve was right that he was compromised. Maybe Loki had used the sex to manipulate him. He felt uneasy. After all the grief he’d given Thor the year before, had he gone and done the same thing, only worse? But Steve didn’t answer, and Stark soon became absorbed in watching the dialogue between Loki and Thanos, which was starting to look like a battle of wits.

The fighting suddenly ceased, and the Chitauri ranged themselves behind Thanos. They could hear Loki talking to Thanos, saw him pull out a green gem and hold it on his palm.

“What the heck is he doing?” Steve asked in confusion.

“See?” Although he actually had no idea what game Loki was playing, Tony grinned at Steve with all the smugness he could muster. “Loki has a plan.”

When the green gem flew through the air into Thanos’ hand and blinked out, Tony and Steve looked at each other in horror as the Chitauri started firing again. As Tony closed his visor and rose off the ground, ready to do battle, he saw Loki swinging Mjolnir, heard the thunderous crack as Thanos’ helmet was breached. At that moment, he knew that Loki was in the right. He’d saved New York, redeemed himself, redeemed both of them, and earned Stark bragging rights for at least a year, and that was no small thing.

***

Mjolnir came back to Loki’s hand and slipped out of his grasp, falling heavily to the pavement with a dull thud. So that’s how it was. She would help him strike the decisive blow, but she would go no further.

Thanos roared and lanced a bolt of energy at him. Leaping back to Thor, Loki crouched over him and, muttering a protection spell, held up both hands to block the blast of pure heat. He felt a searing pain in his calf and realized he had been hit.

Standing despite the pain, Loki finally called up Dione’s silver magic, let it permeate his flesh and travel down his arms, which tingled with power. With both hands he poured it through the chink made by Mjolnir in Thanos’ armor.

Inside the cracked helmet, Thanos’ face turned black and shriveled as the dome blew apart. The suit fell to its knees and then at full length, cracking the pavement. A pair of metal lampposts bent and broke, sending sparks cascading through the air.

Thanos gushed out of the suit onto the scorched pavement in a great purple ooze, and Loki exulted to see that his theory was correct, that Thanos, having been born on Earth but passing millennia in exile on a bare asteroid in space, devoid of air and gravity, had finally become an amorphous creature. His skeleton had atrophied until his body could no longer support itself in gravity. That was why he had needed a suit, and that was why he had needed Jarvis.

Loki poured out twin streams of silver magic from his hands until Thanos’ substance bubbled on the sidewalk and left nothing but an oily, iridescent stain. All around the square, the Chitauri were being beaten back by the Avengers, and the passageway to the clouds was fading away like a vapor trail. The Chitauri army had retreated, leaving its stragglers to be slaughtered.

Behind him, Loki heard Thor stagger to his feet and walk up next to him. Together they stared at the remains of Thanos. “How were you able to defeat him?” Thor asked in a subdued voice. Loki glanced at him once and looked away.

“I had a plan,” he said quietly.

“Why did you not tell me?” Thor sighed softly. “Loki, did I see you wield Mjolnir? How could that be so? Did I dream it?”

Loki scoffed. “Why don’t you ask her?” he said.

“I’m asking you,” Thor replied.

Loki relented. “She came to my hand when I needed her. Jarvis turned off the force field, and I wasn’t sure I had enough _seidr_ to both break the suit and kill Thanos.” Loki spoke reluctantly. He had squatted down and was touching the raw burn on his calf, healing it.

“How did you kill him? He said he was a Titan. Was your _seidr_.... Loki, did you steal Dione’s magic?”

As usual, Thor was a few steps behind. Loki would have been amused except that Thor’s judgmental tone irritated him so. “It was the only way,” Loki said flatly, too tired to relish a fight, but ready to defend himself if necessary. “How else could I have killed him?”

Thor started to speak and then stopped. “It was clever,” he finally said as if conceding a point. “I didn’t think of that.” He paused. “If there is any of her magic left over, perhaps you could give it back.”

Loki didn’t know what to say to that, so he turned his back on Thor and walked away.

 

***

Stark was jubilant after the battle. Half of Union Square had been destroyed; George Washington’s statue was a melted lump of bronze. But there had been no civilian casualties—none! And Stark’s people had managed to take the remains of the Chitauri Leviathan before S.H.I.E.L.D. got to it—another cause to celebrate.

But, above all, Stark was glad he had bet on the right horse. Loki had won the battle for them. He had gotten through the force field that even Cap’s shield and Thor’s hammer couldn’t break, and then he had thrown Thor’s hammer—which proved he was on the right side, didn’t it?—and he had killed Thanos with magic—some kind of weird silver magic that didn’t look like his usual thing, but magic just the same.

Stark corralled everyone and forced them to go over to the shawarma place and eat. He’d gotten Hawkeye and Nat, Bruce, Thor, and even Coulson and a couple of the S.H.I.E.L.D. guys to promise to be there. The one person he hadn’t convinced yet was Loki.

“Come on, it was your day,” he coaxed. “You were looking good, swinging Thor’s hammer—how’d you do that, by the way?—and killing that thing that turned out to be a giant purple blob. How did you know? Was all of that in your plan?”

“Yes,” said Loki. They were standing over Thanos’ half-dismantled suit, through which Stark was trying to retrieve Jarvis.

“No, it wasn’t,” Stark scoffed. “Was it?”

Loki gave him a withering look. “Why doesn’t anyone believe I had a plan?”

“Because you didn’t tell anyone about it. See, any of us, with a plan like that, would have told the others.” 

“Am I part of the team?” Loki asked. “Or have I been your opponent in a similar conflict?”

“A fair point,” Stark said distractedly. “Damn it. This isn’t going to work. I think we lost him.”

“Jarvis had a plan, too,” Loki said. “He said he was going to try to hide in the buffer, whatever that is. Did you look in the buffer?”

Stark stared at him and made a wry face. “Jarvis told you where he’d be? How did he do that?”

“I asked him when I went to see him in the Chitauri web.”

“You _asked_ him? You actually went into the internet? Into the Chitauri hive mind? How is that even possible?” Stark busied himself with the suit, plugging a wire into another port. A grin spread over his face. “He’s here. I’m uploading him now. So, how did you do it?” 

“He wants you to build him an avatar,” Loki said evasively. “He would like to meet you face to face.”

“What a vision that would be,” Stark mused. “I’ll have to think about it.” A sudden thought struck him. “And you didn’t tell me until now? You have to tell me how you did it.”

“Ask Jarvis,” Loki said mischievously, “he has a lot to tell you.” He turned to walk away.

“Come to the restaurant with us,” Stark said again. “The party can’t start without the hero.”

Loki turned back to him on that word. “Does Agent Coulson think I am a hero? Does Hawkeye?”

“Who cares?” Stark asked angrily. “I do.” 

“Indeed?” Loki asked with a small, knowing smile. “And afterwards? Will there be a reward for the hero?”

Stark grinned back. _What the hell,_ he thought, _just one more time._ “That could happen,” he said slyly. “Pepper won’t be home until tomorrow. Just come to the party. And tell me how you visited Jarvis.” 

Loki smiled.


	17. Rewards

Thor sat uncomfortably at the formica table in the shawarma place with an ale in his hand, waiting for sustenance, but actually waiting to see if Stark would be able to convince his brother to come. Cap had sent Thor away after the battle so that he could heal, but he had insisted on helping the others clear the streets.

Now he felt tired and discouraged, and those were not habitual feelings for Thor. With the best intentions, he had made a spectacularly bad decision today, so bad that the Earth had nearly paid for his stupidity, and all because he had not understood his brother.

Granted, Loki was not easy to understand. He lied, and he played tricks, but Thor should have understood that Loki would not work with the Chitauri after what they had done to him. He should have recognized that Loki wanted vengeance against them. After all, Stark and Banner had known.

A commotion at the door got his attention. Stark and Loki walked in—swaggered in was a better description—and stood just inside the doorway, deep in conversation. Thor felt heartened. Perhaps he could talk to Loki and suggest that they go off together after all this—tonight, in fact. He wanted so desperately to make things right, but first they had to talk. And earlier Loki hadn’t seemed to be in a talking mood. But now, with Stark, he was having no trouble finding words. And, as Thor watched, his heart found reason to sink again.

Loki took Stark firmly around the back of the neck with one hand, and with the knuckles of the other hand lightly caressed his cheek, looking into his eyes and talking all the time. Stark slid a hand around Loki’s shoulder and grabbed a handful of hair to pull their mouths together. The kiss lasted long enough for Thor to realize that he had held his breath all through it. They broke apart, grinned at each other and kissed again. If Loki had spared Thor a glance, just one, just a sideways slip of the eyes, Thor would have known that Loki was grandstanding, aiming this show at him. But Loki played it perfectly. His attention was on Stark, and Stark alone.

Thor wasn’t exactly jealous. Well, yes, he was, but at least he wasn’t angry anymore. Since their brief time together, years before, he and Loki had each taken many bed partners. It wasn’t that he begrudged Loki some pleasure with a mortal. But Loki was showing him who had had his back in the battle they had just won, was reminding him why they had won it. Stark had trusted Loki. Thor had not. It was as simple as that. And Loki and Stark would enjoy each other tonight while Thor lay alone in his bed and thought about it.

When Stark and Loki finally sat down to eat, Loki caught Thor’s eye and nodded, as if to say, “Well fought, brother.” And Thor was disappointed again, because there was nothing flirtatious in his look, nothing that would reveal that Loki knew Thor had watched that kiss, holding his breath the whole time. Loki was doing what he wanted, when he wanted, with whom he wanted, without thinking of Thor. That was Loki’s message.

Thor sighed and drained his ale. He would take his punishment, and tomorrow he would talk to Loki.

***

The shawarma place had more or less turned into an Avengers’ party, with a cheerful and supportive crowd outside in the street held back by police barriers. Stark was eating it up, but Banner felt a bit like a caged animal. Sitting next to him, Cap didn’t seem to be enjoying it either.

Cap had been placed by Stark between Loki and Bruce, taking polite bites from his sandwich and throwing sidelong glances at Loki, who was ignoring him. Loki was just sitting there looking at Stark, who was making the rounds of the tables, with a small, unreadable smile on his face. The sandwich on his plate had hardly been touched.

Banner felt antsy. He needed a distraction, even if it came from Loki. “So, Loki, how were you able to lift Mjolnir?” he asked conversationally, leaning across Cap. “I thought only Thor could do it.”

Loki turned to him, looking distinctly irritated. “I was the first to wield Mjolnir,” he said haughtily. “Don’t you remember? I gave her to Thor.”

Bruce smiled. “You haven’t answered my question.” Cap put his sandwich down and started looking interested.

“You don’t have to be _Thor_ ,” Loki said condescendingly, “you have to be _worthy_.”

“So, you were worthy.” It was a question, but Banner framed it as a statement.

Loki shrugged. “Apparently.”

Cap weighed in. “How could that be?” he asked indignantly.

“You ask how I could be worthy?” Loki said incredulously. “I had a plan to save New York, and no one believed me.”

“Except Stark. And me,” Banner said. “I tried to talk Thor out of muzzling you.”

Loki nodded. “You did. To no avail.”

“You’re welcome,” Bruce said wryly. Loki ignored him.

“Does that mean you can use Mjolnir now?” Cap asked, picking up his sandwich again and looking for a place to attack it.

Loki shrugged. “Who knows?”

Bruce met Cap’s eyes and said sardonically, “That’s a no.”

Stark came by, his eyes bright with drink, and leaned against Loki’s shoulder, looking into his plate. “Are you gonna eat that?” he asked, indicating the sandwich.

“Unlikely.” Loki was inscrutable.

“So, how did you visit Jarvis?” Stark asked, squeezing a chair in between Cap and Loki and taking an enormous bite of Loki’s sandwich.

“You visited Jarvis?” Cap asked, surprised.

“I traveled through the internet,” Loki said, looking as if he would have liked to strangle someone. 

“That’s not possible,” said Cap. “That only happens in movies.”

Banner couldn’t help laughing out loud for the first time in ages. “Says the chemically enhanced man.”

Loki had obviously lost interest in the conversation long before. “If you want me to fuck you,” he said to Stark, “we should leave now.”

Cap choked on his drink. Banner pounded him on the back and was happy he himself hadn’t had anything in his mouth to choke on.

“Thanks for that, Loki,” Stark muttered, irritated. But he got up and followed Loki out the door. Thor trailed after them a few minutes later.

***

Thor sat morosely in an armchair in the lounge outside Stark’s bedroom. The door to the guest bedroom where Loki had slept before was closed, and Thor could only assume that Loki and Stark were in there together. He felt uncomfortable being so close while Loki was in bed with Stark, assuming he hadn’t left Midgard already. Thor was reasonably sure he hadn’t, after waiting there half the night, because he still heard the occasional thump or cry from within.

None of the other Avengers had come around all day, probably because they wanted to avoid seeing Tony and Loki together. Thor was the stubborn exception, because he wanted to talk to Loki before his brother vanished again.

The ding of the elevator bell startled him, but when he heard quick, sharp footsteps he knew who it was.

Pepper entered the lounge and stopped, looking at him in surprise. “Don’t tell me they’re still doing it. Have they stopped since I left?”

Awkwardly, Thor gave her a summary of recent events, and, to be kind, tried to imply that Loki could talk almost anyone into doing almost anything, and so it was no reflection on her if Stark had decided to sleep with Loki the day he knew she would return.

“Thanks for that.” Pepper laughed a little sadly. She was wearing jeans and a loose sweatshirt that hung down around her slim hips. She kicked off her high-heeled shoes and perched on the arm of the couch across from him. Thor had the impression that she did not really believe him, but that she appreciated the effort. “So,” she said, “how are you holding up?”

Thor didn’t quite know how to answer that. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

Pepper stood and put her hands on her hips. “You look like a man who could use a beer,” she said kindly.

Thor didn’t know what to say to that, either. These Midgardians had so many rules about alcohol—when it was time to drink, and when it wasn’t—that he feared to be caught in some sort of trap. “Is it not…early?” he asked hesitantly. It was 8:30 in the morning.

Pepper laughed. “Well, yes. But there’s an exception to every rule, Thor, and I think this qualifies.” She went to the refrigerator and got a pack of six beer bottles with a handle on the top and brought it back to the table. She pulled out two bottles and twisted the tops off, handing one bottle to Thor and then clinking her bottle against it. Thor nodded to her. He knew that gesture. They both drank.

Pepper plunked down in the armchair next to his. “Now,” she said, “we wait.”

***

When, hours later, Stark and Loki left the bedroom, they were confronted with a sight that brought them both up short. The coffee table was covered with beer bottles, most of them upright, with a few rolling around between them in splotches of spilled beer. Pepper was sitting sideways in an armchair with her legs dangling over one arm, while Thor sat next to her in the other chair. The big toe of Pepper’s bare left foot was stroking up and down Thor’s bare arm while she grinned at him broadly. She was completely drunk.

Stark grabbed Loki’s arm, oblivious to his glare. “Hey, buddy,” he whispered, “I kind of used up everything I had on you. Can you lend me a little of your mojo so I can keep going?”

Loki sighed and put one hand on Stark’s head. Stark inhaled sharply and his eyes flashed green. “Use it wisely,” Loki said. “That’s the last you’ll get. And don’t forget what I told you about Jarvis.”

“He wants me to build him an avatar,” Stark agreed. “But why?”

“You’ll see.” Loki grinned and started towards Thor.

***

Thor watched Stark and Loki come out into the room with something like trepidation. After many hours of waiting, he still didn’t know what he was going to say to Loki. He saw that Loki’s hair hung in damp tendrils from the shower. His gut ached with longing when he thought of running his hands through that hair. Then he noticed Loki looking at him with hard, jealous eyes, and he realized that Pepper’s foot was caressing his arm. He stood, meeting Loki’s eyes helplessly.

Anyone else would think that Thor was the one who had a right to be jealous, and that anything he could do to ignite Loki’s anger served Loki right. But Loki’s anger was dangerous, and the last thing Thor wanted was to subject Pepper to it.

Stark took Loki by the arm, and Thor’s hands clenched into fists. Since Loki had reached manhood, he had allowed no one to touch him like that besides Thor. Loki laid a hand on Stark’s head, and Stark’s eyes flashed green for a second. Still meeting Thor’s eyes, Loki grinned and stepped towards him. Stark walked over to Pepper and picked her up in his arms. She gave a little shriek and giggled.

“Hey, Loki,” Stark said. “One more thing….”

Loki didn’t deign to look at him. “You presume too much, mortal,” he said, looking at Thor all the time. “What is it this time?”

“Can you make Pepper sober? I need to talk to her.” With one hand she was playing with Stark’s hair, making it stand on end.

Loki flicked a finger, and Pepper groaned. “Do you want her to have the hangover?” he asked.

“God, no!” Stark cried.

“You’re calling me ‘god’ again,” Loki deadpanned. “I like that.” He flicked the finger once more.

“You jerks!” Pepper cried. “Both of you!” She struggled and Stark set her on her feet.

Loki turned and caught Stark’s eye. “I can make her drunk again, if you want.”

“Don’t you dare,” Pepper said stormily. And then, to Stark: “I need to talk to you.” She stalked into his bedroom and he followed meekly, glancing once more at Loki as the door shut behind them.

“Loki, why do you toy with them so?” Thor sighed. “They are not here for your amusement.”

“And yet they are so amusing,” Loki said, grinning. “Whom should I toy with, then? You?”

“You always do.” Thor walked up to face him.

Loki looked him up and down and smiled his most dangerous smile. “Are you jealous, brother?” he asked provocatively.

“Yes,” Thor exploded, “of course I am. And I am sorry, brother,” he added, trying to soften his tone. “I was just trying to help you.”

Loki scoffed softly. “You had a strange way of showing it.”

Thor’s cheeks flushed with effort as he visibly struggled to find words. “I misunderstood your actions. And I...I wanted to go away with you somewhere.”

“Wanted?” Loki cocked his head to one side.

“Want,” Thor corrected. “I want to travel with you. I thought that if I kept you out of the fighting—”

“Don’t explain,” Loki said, waving away his words. “Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere without people. At first, anyway.” Loki smiled at him again and Thor was glad to see that the edge had gone off of it. Thor relaxed his fists and took a deep breath. “Somewhere we can be alone,” he added.

“I know a place,” Loki said. For just that moment, there was peace between them.


	18. A New Path and Epilogue

Thor woke before dawn and found Loki gone.

This did not surprise him. They had traveled for five days now, exploring this unpeopled realm. They had walked together, eaten together, passed the days together without speaking very much, and what little they said had been practical and companionable enough. But, each night, after amusing himself by conjuring an elaborate, luxurious tent with a luxurious bed in it, Loki disappeared.

Thor didn’t know if Loki was off wandering—if he slept somewhere else, or not at all. But, every morning, Loki returned to break his fast with Thor and start on their daily wandering through the thick forests of this place, inhabited only by birds and beasts.

Thor knew it would take time for them to adjust to being together again, to forget rash words and treacherous deeds, or—if forgetting was impossible—to let them fade into the depths of memory. When they were both ready, they would talk about these things. Until then, they would stay silent. Waiting for words did not seem difficult to Thor. But waiting for his brother to come to him became more unbearable every day.

He wanted Loki in his arms, wanted him with an intensity and hunger that surprised him. Every morning, Thor awoke aching with need. Every night, desire pursued him into sleep, and molded his dreams into paeans to lust that made him blush in the morning light.

But Loki had not come to him.

This morning it was cold, and the birds had not yet commenced their songs. The sun was an hour or two from rising. Thor pulled the coverlet over his shoulders and settled back into the warm bed. He thought again of what he might say to his brother once they finally spoke, if that ever happened.

Thor knew he had failed his brother, in so many ways. Words were not Thor’s strong point, but he tried to craft an apology that would say how he knew he had wronged Loki, and yet not go so far that his brother would be completely quit of responsibility for all that had happened between them.

He was sorry he had always belittled Loki’s powers. He was sorry he had allowed Brokk to punish him. And he was sorry for entrapping Loki in the muzzle just moments before the battle. (But, really, how could he have known that Loki had a plan? How was he supposed to know when to trust Loki and how to recognize his deceit? Because Loki was deceitful.) Thor regretted leaving Loki alone on Midgard as a mortal, when it had almost caused his death, but there had been good reason for Odin to punish him. He had lied over and over, and he had invited the Chitauri to conquer Midgard. He had killed innocents, and controlled Clint’s mind, and Eric’s, making them do things they regretted even now. He had thrown Thor out of the airship in an armored cage that he had barely escaped from. And....

Thor sighed and buried his face in the pillow. This was no apology. This was a list of grievances, and they were all valid, and Thor was still angry about all of them, and yet—he burned with desire.

He drifted off to sleep again, and his dreams plunged him into a deep well of time past, bringing forth a parade of people he had known in Asgard. His childhood friends were there, and he was trying to explain to Sif and the Warriors Three why he was traveling with Loki, giving him another chance. And they laughed at him, not letting him speak. They cut off his words with shouts and howls of laughter until he was furious enough to strike them down, but Mjolnir wouldn’t answer his call. And then, before his horrified eyes, Fandral held up a needle and thread.

Thor awoke in a cold sweat, hearing the echo of his own inarticulate cry. The covers were on him still, and as he made to throw them off, something cool slid against his back and side, soothing his overheated skin. And he realized it was Loki, coming into bed with him.

He tried to turn into Loki’s arms, but Loki lay on him, gently pushing him down, and moving his mouth next to Thor’s ear. “Stay like this awhile,” Loki breathed. “Let me touch you.”

The words, and the feel of Loki’s breath in his ear, Loki’s body against his, sent a tremor through Thor’s body, and he stayed where he was, half on his belly and half on his side. His cock was so rigid he had to stop himself from rutting up against the sheets. Pushing Thor’s hair aside, Loki kissed his neck and nuzzled up behind his ear. And then Loki’s hand brushed his cock, and Thor groaned.

“Let me touch you,” Thor whispered softly. “I want you, Loki! I want to be inside you.”

Loki swiveled his hips, sliding his cock slowly against Thor’s ass. “And I want to be inside you,” Loki purred. “Me first.”

Loki must be teasing him, as he often did in the old days. Thor was not _argr_ , could not be, because someday, perhaps, he would be king of Asgard. Thor laughed. “Let me turn and face you. Make me ready.”

Loki was amused. “Don’t tell me you’re still a virgin,” he scoffed, kneading Thor’s ass with skilled fingers. “You said yourself being _argr_ was not shameful, the night I escaped from my exile on Midgard. I heard you. I thought you must have been with some man who had fucked you well. But I will fuck you better.”

“I only meant I did not mean to shame you for it,” Thor said, suddenly feeling angry. He had never been with another man, not since his time with Loki, long ago, and he had certainly never been fucked. How long would this game go on? Did Loki want him or not? Turning suddenly, he flipped Loki onto his back and pounced on him. “Now,” he said with satisfaction, “how should I take you? Tell me what you want.”

In a flash, so quickly that he wasn’t even aware of how it happened, Thor lay on his own back, looking up into Loki’s cool green eyes. “The days when you could take me by force are long since past, my brother,” Loki said arrogantly.

“I never took you without your consent,” Thor replied heatedly.

“No,” Loki agreed, “you did not. But you could have. For a time you had the power to overcome me. Perhaps it is not so agreeable to learn that I can do the same to you.”

Thor pushed Loki back, and Loki moved away to let him rise. They looked at each other speculatively.

“I thought you wanted me,” Thor said, caught between anger and confusion, and deeply mired in frustration. His cock was still hard. Loki reached out and ran a finger up its length from root to foreskin, making Thor shudder.

“Of course I want you,” Loki said enticingly. “Let me make love to you. You don’t know the pleasures to be had in—”

“In _ergi_? Thor interrupted gruffly.

Watching his face closely, Loki took a few seconds to answer. “You can still be king, you know,” he said in a quiet voice. “I was king, and Gungnir obeyed my hand.”

Thor felt his face go red. “That is not all I was thinking of,” he said sullenly.

“What, then?” Loki asked, moving towards him and pushing him back slowly. His hand found Thor’s cock and encircled it. Thor lay back on the bed and watched him carefully. “Tell me, Thor, what does _ergi_ mean? What does it mean to be _argr_?”

Thor frowned. “You know. We have been told since we were children.”

“Ah, yes, the myths we were fed instead of the truth. A man—such as myself—who loves to have another’s cock inside him is _argr._ As a young man I learned the pleasures of _ergi_ impaled on your manhood,” he added warningly, when Thor made an impatient gesture as if to rise, “so bear with me.” Thor sighed and lay back against the sheets. “But does _any_ penetration make you _argr_? What if you were to suck me with your mouth? Or if I put a finger inside you? Would that make you _argr_?”

Thor had been growing more and more impatient as Loki spoke. “No,” he sputtered, “of course not.”

“I see,” Loki continued, slowly stroking Thor’s cock with one hand and spreading Thor’s thighs to fondle his balls with the other. “So you will not be angry if I do this.” He slipped one slick finger into Thor and pushed in as far as he could, stroking something deep inside that spiked pleasure through Thor’s body so unexpectedly he gasped. “Can a finger unman you, Thor?”

“Loki, don’t,” Thor protested, without making a move to dislodge the finger that was moving so deeply and provocatively inside him.

“Why not?” Loki asked innocently. “One finger won’t make you _argr_ , or even two, or three.” Now most of his hand was inside Thor, caressing him in a way he had never felt before.

“Stop it,” Thor cried, suddenly afraid that he would spend in Loki’s hand. Loki withdrew both hands and sat back on his heels, watching Thor try to regain control of himself.

“You don’t understand anything,” Loki said bitterly. “No, you never took me by force—would you like a reward for that, brother?—but you never let me do to you what I wanted to do, what you did to me. It was always about your pleasure. I opened myself to you. As usual, I took the risks for both of us, and I was punished.”

“What?” Thor asked, dazed with confusion and frustrated desire. “What are you talking about?”

“When Odin gave me up to Brokk, it was never about the dwarves. Did I hurt anyone with my trick? It was all about _ergi_ — _ergi_ and incest. Odin must have known what we were doing. I don’t know who told him—whether it was Sif or one of those damned ravens. But he knew. And though he knew my true parentage, he also knew we thought ourselves brothers in blood. The court was on the verge of finding out about us. Odin feared that soon I would unman you, too, and the people would not want you for their king. And so he had a choice. He could only save one son. You were his natural-born heir; I was a foundling from a temple of ice. You were inviolate; I had been fucked. Odin threw me away to save you, Thor. He threw me to Brokk so that, someday, you could succeed him as king of Asgard.”

Thor lay stunned as Loki’s words rang between them. His brother, known as Lie-Smith, Silvertongue. Long ago, when they were children, Sif used to say that Loki could charm the moss from a stone, the songs from the birds, the sea from the shore. But this time, Loki’s words contained a large amount of truth.

“You hurt Sif,” Thor said weakly, “and you cheated the dwarves. But Brokk’s punishment was a horror. I should have stood by your side. I have regretted that failure every day since then.”

“Ah, regret!” Loki scoffed. “What else do you regret, Thor, and for how many long years? Has it changed anything, do you think?”

“Loki, you hold such anger at Father, and at me. I cannot change what happened in the past. I can only hope to make amends with you now.”

Loki looked at him expressionlessly through a long, silent moment. “None of it matters now,” he whispered, turning away.

Thor was not sure what he had said to make Loki look so defeated. He sat up and took his brother by the arm. “But it does matter,” he said. “I failed you then and many times since. No wonder you were so angry on my coronation day.” He pulled Loki close to him and encircled him with both arms to feel the warmth of his body. Loki did not protest. Thor thought of all the unforgiveable things that had passed between them, the things Loki had done, and the things he had suffered.

“Neither of us will be king now,” Thor said, admitting it to himself completely for the first time. Too much has happened to keep us from Asgard.” To his surprise, Thor found that the thought did not make him bitter.

“You fell,” Loki said simply, closing his eyes. “But I fell further.” The scars of those horrible wounds he had shown Thor before, at Stark Tower, reappeared on his flesh and disappeared again. Thor tried to hold him tighter, but Loki pulled himself from Thor’s embrace and stood as if to leave.

“Don’t go,” Thor said, standing too.

“Why should I stay?” Loki asked bitterly. “You are afraid.”

Thor felt a quick flush of anger that faded as quickly. Was that all that mattered to Loki—fucking him? But he was right. Thor was afraid of no battle, no enemy, but he was afraid of this. He stepped closer to Loki and bent his head to kiss Loki’s shoulder. “I will try to put my fear aside,” he said.

“Will you really?” Loki asked, his eyes hard.

“Although I do not wish to become _argr_ , I will do anything else in my power to make things right with you,” Thor said firmly, knowing even as he said it that Loki would make some unforeseen use of his words that he would not enjoy.

“All right, brother. If you want to make things right, I have a splendid idea.” Loki was angry, so angry, and Thor started to despair. Loki was gripping his arms now, just above the elbow, his fingers digging into Thor’s flesh. “Kneel to me,” Loki said, squeezing harder and looking straight into his eyes.

 _Kneel to me._ Suddenly, Thor knew what Loki’s next words would be. He remembered a game they used to play near the end of their time together. They would bet on something carefully chosen by Thor, and Loki would always lose, being younger and smaller, and being prevented by the terms of the game from using his magic. And then the winner—Thor—would command Loki, his serf, to do something for his pleasure. The last time Thor won, he had asked Loki to kneel and suck his cock. Loki had sucked him many times in bed, taking great pleasure in teasing him, and Thor had been content to be teased, as long as he was pleasured. But that time, the time Thor made Loki kneel and service him, everything changed.

The next time they played, Loki won the game, but Thor refused to do as he was asked. After that, Loki never sucked him again, as he never again consented to play the game. Thor reproached him, making light of what had happened. “It’s just a game,” he had laughed dismissively, as Loki’s eyes blazed at him. At least it had seemed like a game to Thor. Perhaps for Loki it had seemed more like torture.

“Kneel to me on the ground,” Loki was saying imperiously, with an unpleasant look on his face, “and suck me until I spend in your mouth. Do it well. Make it last. Then perhaps I will stay with you some further time.” Some of Thor’s own words thrown back at him: _Kneel to me. Suck me. Do it well. Make it last_.

Loki was testing him. If Thor refused to do this, he would never see his brother again.

Of all the things Loki could have asked for, this was one that Thor least wanted to do. He had never done it for any man, and he had thought it shameful even as he often asked for it. Now the memory of having been so piggish and so unfair seemed worse than the idea of submitting to Loki’s will.

“Very well,” he said softly, meeting Loki’s eyes. “If you wish it.”

Without waiting for an answer, Thor dropped to his knees on the ground and took Loki’s cock into his hand. He kissed it, and put his face up against Loki’s thighs to breathe in his male scent. Slowly and carefully, Thor took Loki’s cock into his mouth, and thought on why he had to do this.

Loki. His first lover. The one he never forgot. Loki was imprinted on him, as home and family were. The scent and taste of him, his voice, the feel of his skin. Even his tricks, even his teasing. Making love with women was sweet, but tangling with Loki was sweeter—his touch, his intensity, the weight of him, his sinewy strength. Their kissing, until lips were sore and tongues were tired, until Loki’s smooth face was flushed with friction from Thor’s beard. Their lovemaking, awkward and urgent at first; later, perfectly attuned to each other’s desire. Loki knew how to wait and how to rush; Loki knew what Thor wanted and gave it to him. Loki was the treasure that Thor threw away because he was too familiar. Now he wanted Loki back with all the weight of experience, of disappointment, of years of separation. Thor would do what he must to make it right.

The first touch of Thor’s mouth had wrung a startled cry from Loki’s lips. Thor found that he could only get slightly more than half of Loki’s cock into his mouth without gagging, but, awkward and unpracticed as he felt, he was apparently giving Loki pleasure, keeping his full attention. Loki’s hands were cupped around Thor’s head, but he wasn’t pushing or pulling to increase the pace. He seemed to want Thor to do this himself, in his own way.

As he continued doggedly, awkwardly, he remembered the delicious tricks Loki had played while sucking him and wondered if his brother had used sorcery—for, truly, this was a more difficult task than Thor had ever imagined.

With Jane, Thor had learned something of the art of giving pleasure, which was new to him. All his life he had given pleasure only if it gave him pleasure in return. Jane had called him selfish, and with her he had made an effort to change. When he thought back on how Loki had pleasured him, and how often, he felt ashamed. For a time he had thought of Loki as a monster, but didn’t he have a hand in creating that monster? The wounds on Loki’s flesh, made by the Chitauri, had profoundly shocked him, but what about the wounds on Loki’s mind, his soul? Hadn’t Thor himself inflicted many of those?

He let the head of Loki’s cock slide along the roof of his mouth to the back of his throat, as far as he dared go, then pulled back and sucked hard. Loki moaned and spent down his throat, and Thor made himself swallow, as Loki always had, although the taste was not agreeable.

Loki dropped to his knees and took Thor into his arms, kissing him deeply, and Thor knew Loki tasted himself in Thor’s mouth, and that it pleased him to do so.

“‘Oh, brother, let me join with you,’” Loki whispered hotly in Thor’s ear, “‘I desire it so dearly, and I think you want it, too. No one need ever know.’” He laughed softly. “Do you remember those words?”

Thor did remember them. He had said those words to Loki the night he had made him _argr_ , the night they had first really made love, on a pile of furs in front of the fireplace in Loki’s chamber. Loki was right. He had taken the risk, and he had been punished for it. Thor had shared the pleasure, but he had not taken as large a risk.

“Yes, I remember,” Thor breathed.

“Now,” Loki murmured seductively, caressing him lightly all over, so that Thor surged forward involuntarily, “now, shall I take you, brother?” Loki’s cock was hard again, sliding against him, and Thor remembered how insatiable his brother had always been.

Was he going to let Loki take him? Thor was hard with need, aching for a touch, and even so he recognized that he did not always make his best decisions in this state. But what did _ergi_ or being _argr_ matter at this moment, between them? Loki had submitted to him long ago—didn’t he owe Loki this many times over?

With some trepidation he decided to let it happen, though he knew he might regret it later. “Do as you will, Loki,” he said as steadily as he could manage. “I will allow it.”

Loki laughed softly in his ear. “You will allow it? How magnanimous. When I finally deign to take you, you will not be able to resist. You will ask me for it. You will beg me abjectly.”

He pushed Thor down on all fours and got behind him, driving his fingers into Thor’s body as before, but quickly, deeply, while fondling Thor’s balls and teasing his cock until Thor thrust forward into air, seeking Loki’s hand. Loki’s knees forced Thor’s thighs so far apart that he felt defenseless against anything Loki might do. Now that Loki was denying him what he hadn’t been sure of wanting a few seconds before, Thor began to ache for it.

Loki’s hand inside him was driving Thor into a frenzy of need. Held awkwardly on his hands and knees by Loki’s body, legs spread wide, Thor was completely dependent on Loki for stimulation. He thrust forward where he thought Loki’s hand had been a moment before, but met with nothing but air. He moaned, and suddenly, Loki withdrew his hands and placed them instead on Thor’s inner thighs, caressing them lightly but refusing any stimulation where Thor wanted it most.

“Ah, Loki,” Thor groaned, dimly recognizing the manipulation but unable to fight it. “Please, Loki.” Thor knew he was already lost, knew that, in moments, Loki would take him and use him, and that he wanted it more than anything. And yet Thor still clung to one small shred of his pride. _Please, brother,_ he thought, _don’t make me beg, don’t make me say it._

“Please, Loki, what?” Loki said evilly, touching his lips lightly to Thor’s ear, sending a thrill through his body. His hands danced across Thor’s chest, tweaking a nipple in passing, making Thor stifle a cry.

Thor’s last resistance fell away all at once. “Take me,” he cried, surrendering. “Fuck me! Please, Loki, do it quickly.”

Before Thor had finished speaking, Loki pulled him back by the hips and drove inside him, all the way in. The sensation was intense, overwhelming. Thor had not expected how powerful and yet harrowing it would feel to be touched so intimately—to be filled, to be fucked. He felt wrenched open, vulnerable, but incapable of stopping this devastating pleasure. And then, finally, Loki wrapped a hand around his cock.

Thor’s universe contracted to a white-hot point and shattered. When he came back to himself, Loki was still inside him, though they were lying on their sides together. Thor had no recollection of falling.

“I know, brother, I know,” Loki was saying soothingly, while still moving inside him, and Thor was dimly aware that he must have cried out when the frenzy took him.

“Loki, I….” Thor trailed off, not sure what to say. He felt embarrassed at his loss of control, at how he had let Loki manipulate him. And yet….

It was done. He was _argr_ , and he had agreed to it, asked for it. A great wave of relief washed through him. Something that he had feared all his life had become real, and it turned out to have nothing fearful about it.

“So, have I unmanned you, brother? Do you find yourself changed?” Loki was still hard within him, holding him by the hips and rocking slowly against his ass.

Never before would Thor have laughed at such a question. “Not unmanned, but changed, as you say,” he said. “ _Ergi_ was but a story that we were taught. I do not feel less of a man.” Pepper had been right. There was an exception to every rule, and the exception was usually Loki.

“Very good, Thor, but there is more to it than that. It was a lie we were taught to make soldiers of us, to make us fear magic and depend upon brute strength for our victories.”

“And without magic—” Thor began slowly.

“Without magic—without _me_ —you would rot in Valhalla while Thanos devoured the universe.” Loki laughed softly and nuzzled his face against Thor’s neck. “They called me _argr_ long before you made me so. I practiced sorcery and I walked by myself, letting no man tell me what to do. Those are dangerous qualities in Asgard.”

“And you played tricks on everyone. And you lied,” Thor couldn’t help voicing the reproaches that came to his lips.

“Ah, Thor,” Loki chuckled, “you are so single-minded. How boring! Now, lie on your back. I have more to show you. Did you never wonder how I felt when you took me? Why I craved it so?” Pulling out, Loki urged Thor to lie on his back before pushing his legs to his chest and entering him again. Thor did not resist. He _had_ sometimes wondered what Loki felt—fleetingly, too afraid to wish it for himself. Now he did not need to fear or to wonder anymore. Loki, whom he thought he had lost, was in him, on him, holding him in a close embrace.

The first time, Loki had fucked him slowly and deeply, but now he pounded in hard, grinning as he felt Thor respond. Thor couldn’t stop himself from opening to it.

And Thor realized that, from now on, they would face each other as equals; that, despite Loki’s tricks, his lying, his magic, Thor would never be able to thoughtlessly dismiss Loki, or his powers, again.

***

For several days they languished in each other’s arms, finding each other again after a long hiatus. They took each other, teased each other, and argued endlessly. They slept, and ate, and bathed in a hot spring near their camp, which Loki channeled into a stone basin he had created.

Loki had to admit that he was content to have found Thor again, to have finally made Thor hear him, and give in to him. It was not nothing to have made Thor _argr_. And Thor was asking him to agree to travel further together. Loki knew that part of Thor’s desire was to keep Loki from making mischief, but the rest of Thor’s desire was what interested him. He knew he would agree to go, but he would make Thor wait for his answer.

For the last hour, Thor had been trying to find out what Loki had done with the muzzle when Stark had removed it for him. So far, Loki had given him teasing replies, or none. Now, as they were lounging in hot water, Thor started his questions again.

Thor sighed. “Loki, what did you do with the muzzle? You can’t destroy it. Where is it? I promised Heimdahl I would return it to Odin’s Treasury before Odin knew it was gone. I promised him, Loki.”

“You should not have made such a promise,” Loki countered. “And why does a torture device belong in Odin’s Treasury?”

“What if I promise you—” Thor began.

“A promise? Thor’s promises are worthless. Just ask Heimdahl.” Loki grinned triumphantly.

“Just tell me where it is,” Thor insisted patiently.

“In the caldera of a volcano,” Loki said finally, starting to be bored by the game. “I thought it needed cleaning.”

“Which volcano?” Thor asked sternly. “It won’t melt.” Loki gave Thor a withering look.

“Nearby. Somewhere in the Nine Realms,” Loki said innocently. “You’ll find it in a century if you start looking now. Thank you for bringing the muzzle to Midgard for me, brother. I would never have been able to get at it while it was still in Odin’s Treasury.”

“Bring it back,” Thor ordered peremptorily. “I promise not to use it on you.”

“You promise not to use it on me?” Loki asked incredulously. “It was made for me. It has no other use.”

“But, Loki, I must return it to Odin’s Treasury, or else Heimdahl—”

“Or else what?” Loki said, finally angry. “It has been a torment to me for centuries. I will not return it.” He looked at Thor sideways and shook his head. “I thought you wanted to go wandering with me. Or was that just talk? Who knows when you’ll see Heimdahl or Odin again? Are you here to bring me back to Odin for more punishment?”

“Of course not!” Thor looked stung. “I meant what I said,” he grumbled. “I will go wandering with you. But I must—”

“Enough of ‘must’!” Loki cried. Leaving one of his doubles facing Thor, he crept up behind his brother and ducked him in the steaming water. Thor came up spluttering. A satisfying struggle ensued that ended with Loki straddling Thor, fucking himself on Thor’s cock as he playfully sprinkled water over Thor’s chest and face with his dripping wet hair, making Thor laugh despite himself.

 

**Epilogue**

The insects in this place shrilled loudly in their ears as Thor followed Loki up a winding mountain path into the forest. Although he had given up trying to convince Loki to return the muzzle to Heimdahl, he had convinced Loki to do this. Afterwards, they would go off together, far away from Asgard, from Midgard, from everyone they knew.

Loki walked swiftly and sure-footed, as if he knew exactly where he was going. Perhaps he could read the magic of this place. Thor had no idea where they were, but just followed where Loki led.

To make this work, they had to learn to trust each other. Thor was learning to listen to Loki without assuming that every word from his brother’s lips was a lie. What Loki had told him about the muzzle had convinced Thor that it was indeed a torture device. Someday, Thor would stand up to Odin and tell him so. Meanwhile, he was deeply ashamed to think that he had used it on Loki so often and so thoughtlessly. Thor had been stupid, stupid and cruel. He wondered how long it would take Loki to forgive him for that, and for every other wrong he had done, or if that were even possible.

Could he forgive Loki? That seemed to be happening already, gradually, as Thor learned to relinquish his need to be the dominant brother, the one who was never wrong. It humbled him to think how many lies he had told himself while calling Loki a liar.

They reached a clearing, and Loki paused, looking back significantly at Thor. “This is where the Chitauri ambushed me,” he said, indicating the area before him.

In the center of the clearing stood the splintered remains of what had probably been a magnificent old oak. Now it was devastated, scorched, as were the earth and rock around it. Even the surrounding forest had taken heavy damage. The acrid scent of wood smoke lingered in the forest air. Something was wrong here. Even Thor could feel it.

“Is this where—” he began tentatively.

“Yes,” Loki answered tersely. “Dione’s spring once was here.”

She had imprisoned Loki in the lone survivor of her grove of sacred oaks, and he had blown it to pieces, fighting for his life. Thanos had not restored the oak or the spring, and Loki had buried the spring deep underground, so that no worshipper could ever find it again. By bargaining with Thanos to take her vengeance on Loki, Dione had destroyed herself.

“Come on,” Loki said, his face pale and grim as he crossed the clearing and reentered the forest.

“Is she dead?” Thor asked anxiously. “Can you tell?”

“Not yet,” Loki answered, biting off the words.

They walked for nearly another hour to a place where the forest was deep and still. Even the cicadas did not sing here. Loki’s steps slowed, and Thor slowed behind him, nor did he dare to pose his question again.

Loki stopped and seemed to listen. He squatted down and laid his hands on the earth, closing his eyes. His hair hung down still around his face. Thor watched, and for the first time he began to understand the wonder of Loki’s gift. Thor could command thunder and lightning with the power of Mjolnir. But his brother’s gifts were subtler, and perhaps ultimately more powerful. Loki could manipulate reality in ways that Thor could not. He could walk through the realms, invisible and unhindered. He could change the course of a river, create an illusion that mimicked the Soul Gem, or steal the powers of an ancient god. And that was truly a prodigious thing.

“Tricks,” Thor had called them more than once, “mere tricks,” but he had had no idea of Loki’s power. “Where does your magic come from?” Thor had asked him once.

“Talent,” Loki had answered with a smirk, “talent and study.” And Thor knew it to be true, for Loki had spent more time with his books than Thor had on any of his pastimes. It must have maddened him when the response of Asgard to his complex spells was dismissive laughter, or rumors that he had gained his power by letting a sorcerer fuck him.

There was a flash of silver light and Thor watched as Loki bent low over the ground and then stood unsteadily. Thor knew better than to speak or to offer a supporting hand. He waited.

“It is done,” Loki said, an enigmatic look on his face.

In silence they returned through the woods, glimpsing the blue sky through the trees now as they left that deep, dark place. Birds sang, and the insects were heard again. When they reached the burnt-out cleaning, Loki stopped and looked at the oak and smiled a strained, wan smile.

“There,” he said, “I have done what you asked. I returned what was left of Dione’s magic to her, and restored her spring. I shall not return to this place again.” Loki looked up from the shattered oak to meet Thor’s eyes and his vague smile warmed into a grin. “Come, brother.” At Thor’s nod, Loki turned and set off down the mountain, but Thor lingered a moment.

From the damaged heart of the oak, silvery water bubbled and sang, creating a small pool around its base. Already the raw damage to earth and trees looked somewhat softer, and the feeling of wrongness that Thor had felt before had dissipated. All he felt in this place was peace.

And now Thor and his brother—his volatile, mythomane brother—would wander for years, or decades, he knew not how long. Someday, further ahead than Thor could see, things would change again, because things always did. Perhaps Thor would be called home to Asgard—perhaps, unlikely as it seemed, he could still one day be king—or perhaps he would return to Earth. Jane, if she were alive, would be an old woman, and—he hoped—having found a companion worthy of her, would be surrounded by children and grandchildren and celebrated for her lifetime of work. Stark would be an old man, if he survived his reckless style of living. And Thor and Loki would look the same—young and strong, in the prime of their lives. But that didn’t mean that their lives had been without pain. The longer you lived, it seemed, the more you had to carry with you.

Perhaps this peace between them would hold, and then someday Thor could ask Odin to lift the sentence from Loki’s head, and the exile could return home. Perhaps the brothers could learn to trust and respect each other, as they never had before.

Thor looked again at the blasted trunk of the ancient oak. Where the water touched the wood, a tiny sapling had sprung up. Someday Thor might return here to see that sapling become a study oak. In time, Dione’s grove would be restored. Loki had kept his promise.

Full of hopes and fears, Thor sighed and pushed away thoughts of the future. Turning, he headed down the rocky path after his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who have been following this story! I hope you enjoyed it. Please return to the archive and leave a comment to let me know what you thought.


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